THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •   BOSTON  •    CHICAGO    •  DALLAS 
ATLANTA    •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LOOTED 

LONDON    •   BOMBAY   •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


The 

Next  Step  in  Democracy 


BY 
R.  W.  SELLARS,  PH.D. 

ASSISTANT  PROFESSOR  OP  PHILOSOPHY, 
UNIVERSITY  OP  MICHIGAN 

AUTHOR  OP  "CRITICAL  REALISM'* 


Nrut  fork 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1916 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1916, 

BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY, 
Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  April,  1916. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE  SPIRIT  OF  MODERN  SOCIALISM 1 

II.  SOCIALISM  IN  THE  MAKING 22 

III.  WHAT  SOCIALISM  HOPES  TO  ACCOMPLISH 48 

IV.  MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  SOCIALISM 72 

V.  OBJECTIONS  TO  SOCIALISM 93 

VI.  OBJECTIONS  AND  TENDENCIES 114 

VII.  THE  ETHICS  OF  LABOR 135 

VIII.  THE  GROWTH  OF  JUSTICE 157 

IX.  SOME.  PRINCIPLES  OF  PECUNIARY  REWARD 178 

X.  THE  CONDITIONS  OF  A  SOCIAL  FREEDOM 200 

XI.  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  WAR 222 

XII.  CAN  WE  UNIVERSALIZE  DEMOCRACY?  .  .  .  246 


338055 


THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  SPIRIT  OF  MODERN  SOCIALISM 

LARGE  movements  bearing  on  many  aspects  of  life  are 
hard  to  define.  There  are  at  least  two  reasons  for  this. 
In  the  first  place,  they  imply  a  criticism  of  the  old  stand- 
ards of  justice  and  the  good  and  therefore  cannot  be  de- 
fined by  means  of  them.  In  the  second  place,  they  consist 
in  large  measure  of  tendencies  which  are  only  partly  con- 
scious of  their  end  and  which  are  impressive  because  of  the 
prophecy  they  contain  rather  than  for  what  they  ex- 
plicitly champion.  So  long  as  a  definition  is  thought  of 
as  an  expression  of  definite  relations  between  fixed  and 
essentially  changeless  terms,  no  significant  definition 
can  be  given  of  a  new  movement.  The  true  definition 
is  a  product  of  a  slow  and  creative  growth;  it  is  the  ex- 
pression in  conceptual  elements  of  an  intuition  which  is 
made  possible  only  by  the  final  settling  down  of  social 
forces  into  something  approaching  an  equilibrium.  The 
intellectual  formulation  comes  after  the  relative  maturity 
of  a  social  movement  rather  than  before. 

At  certain  periods  everyone  feels  that  something  new  is 
abroad.  There  is  no  longer  that  quiet  satisfaction  with 
the  customary  methods  of  doing  things  that  characterizes 
the  epoch  of  accepted  order.  Those  who  are  sensitive  to 
signs  of  change  know  that  society  is  preparing  to  take  a 
step  forward;  they  feel  that  the  old  watchwords  no  longer 

1 


NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

have  the  same  authority  and  that  men  are  consciously  and 
unconsciously  reaching  out  to  new  ideas  and  purposes  and 
adjusting  themselves  to  new  methods.  It  is  as  though 
society  had  accomplished  certain  things  with  fairly  appro- 
priate institutions  and  habits,  had  enjoyed  the  benefit  for 
a  time  and  was  then  reaching  out  for  something  finer  and 
more  adequate.  Without  clear  knowledge  of  the  reason 
why,  discontent  and  restlessness  grow  apace  and  men  look 
with  critical  eyes  upon  arrangements  which  but  now  were 
regarded  with  complacence. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  find  something  analogous  to  this 
in  the  life  of  the  individual.  /How  often  a  person  strives 
for  some  goal  which  seems  tohim,  for  the  time,  the  thing 
which  will  satisfy  all  his  desires.  He  thinks  of  himself  as 
attaining  this  haven  and  settling  down  with  a  sigh  of 
satisfaction  to  its  enjoyment.  But  soon  after  his  success, 
new  desires  spring  up,  urging  him  on  to  new  emprises — a 
new  horizon  opens  up  before  him  and  what  he  has  accom- 
plished appears  little  by  the  side  of  what  is  possible. 
His  new  situation  has  brought  with  it  added  knowl- 
edge and  new  opportunities  so  the  old  wanderlust  returns 
and  drives  him  onward.  Now  the  history  of  society  is 
very  similar  to  this;  forces  making  for  change  appear  and 
break  up  the  status  which  seemed  so  enduring. 

We  may  say,  then,  that  periods  of  transition  follow 
periods  of  relative  balance  and  stability.  During  these 
eras  of  change,  while  the  direction  to  be  taken  is  not  yet 
clearly  marked,  the  air  is  full  of  suggestions.  Discussions 
are  rife  and  all  kinds  of  ideas  gain  currency.  The  con- 
servatives, who  are  averse  to  change  either  because  they 
have  little  imagination  and  naturally  respect  customs  and 
habits  or  because  they  are  the  beneficiaries  of  the  still 
dominant  order, — and  both  motives  may  be  unconsciously 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  MODERN  SOCIALISM  3 

combined — decry  innovations  and  praise  the  harmony  and 
beauty  and  practicality  of  the  actual  social  structure.  In 
doing  so,  they  are  always  partially  right.  They  are  in  a 
position  to  see  those  aspects  of  society  which  are  valuable 
and  significant — for  the  old  is  never  without  its  justifica- 
tions. But  we  must  balance  against  this  the  fact  that  the 
conservative  has  an  influence  far  beyond  what  is  right- 
fully his  because  of  the  values  he  defends,  for  his  social 
position  gives  him  a  leverage  upon  public  opinion  in  excess 
of  his  numbers  and  he  has,  moreover,  back  of  him  the 
essential  conservatism  of  organized  society,  its  fear  of  the 
unknown  and  untried.  Over  against  the  conservatives  are 
the  liberals  who  welcome  certain  limited  changes  and  are 
less  antagonistic  to  far-reaching  schemes  of  reform;  while 
in  the  vanguard  are  the  more  radical  members  of  society 
who  are  fertile  in  ideas  of  a  revolutionary  type.  It  is  by 
means  of  the  interplay  of  these  groups,  reenforced  by  the 
changing  pressure  of  political  and  industrial  conditions, 
that  the  direction  of  progress  and  its  speed  are  determined. 
Gradually  society  gains  consciousness  of  new  desires  and 
new  possibilities.  The  result  is  the  growth  of  social  move- 
ments which  champion  these  desires  and  try  to  put  them 
into  action. 

Now  socialism  is  just  such  an  initiatory  movement  and 
it  is  far  easier  to  come  under  its  influence  and  to  feel  that 
it  stands  for  something  vital  than  to  analyze  it  and  give 
it  an  adequate  definition.  The  correct  reason  for  this 
difficulty  of  definition  is,  I  believe,  that  which  I  offered 
above;  it  challenges  the  current,  limited  notions  of  justice 
and  of  the  social  good  and  consists  of  tendencies  which 
have  not  yet  secured  complete  formulation.  Like  all 
things  which  are  big  and  vital,  it  is  full  of  possibilities  and 
has  not  come  to  complete  self-expression.  It  is  a  move- 


4  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

ment  rather  than  a  position,  as  much  a  means  of  discovery 
and  of  social  growth  as  a  program.  To  demand  too  com- 
plete a  program  is  to  require  socialism  to  anticipate  what 
cannot  be  anticipated — those  changes  in  industry,  politics, 
social  temper  and  social  relations  to  which  institutions 
must  adapt  themselves.  The  mistake  made  by  many  of  the 
fathers  of  modern  socialism  has  lain  here,  in  the  attempt 
to  forecast  the  future  in  too  definite  a  way.  The  result 
has  been  the  production  of  orthodoxies  quite  comparable 
to  those  of  the  Churches  and  nearly  as  harmful  in  their 
consequences.  I  mean  that  there  was  the  tendency  to 
construct  a  social  philosophy  good  for  all  time  founded  on 
the  rendering  explicit  what  was  already  supposedly  im- 
plicit. Reflective  thought  was  the  microscope  to  be  used 
by  the  great  thinker  in  his  effort  to  discern  the  forces  al- 
ready at  work.  Once  these  could  be  discerned,  the  future 
course  of  society  could  be  predicted.  We  are  more  modest 
to-day  because  we  realize  that  newness  is  a  character  of 
all  phases  of  life  and  that  we  cannot  look  with  assurance 
very  far  ahead.  [The  unforeseen  intervenes  to  disturb  the 
most  careful  calculations.  This  situation  does  not  mean 
that  there  are  not  certain  perennial  ideals  like  justice  and 
liberty  which  are  effective  in  human  life,  but  that  their 
concrete  expression  is  conditioned  by  factors  which  are  not 
entirely  predictable. 

I  presume  that  every  young  man  of  to-day  who  has  the 
capacity  to  be  attracted  by  the  thought  of  a  juster  and 
humaner  world  than  that  visible  around  us  has  been  drawn 
in  some  measure  towards  socialism.  And  such  youths  are 
surely  many,  for  generous  enthusiasms  find  hospitable 
soil  in  fresh  minds  not  swayed  by  too  anxious  thought  of 
self-interest,  minds  which  for  the  time  being  are  willing 
to  undertake  the  quest  of  the  Holy  Grail.  Let  that  man 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  MODERN  SOCIALISM  5 

take  shame  to  himself  who  has  never  been  fired  by  the 
dream  of  better  things  into  alliances  and  actions  which 
seemed  to  his  older  and  soberer  self  foolish  and  unwise! 
What  would  the  world  be  were  it  entirely  controlled  by  the 
tired  pessimism  of  middle-age?  But  enthusiasm,  valuable 
as  it  is  in  furnishing  energy  and  in  giving  instinctive 
backing  to  the  things  which  are  worth  while,  must  be 
supplemented  by  reflection  if  it  is  to  use  this  energy 
economically  and  to  the  proper  issues.  Society  is  very 
complex  and  its  re-organization  cannot  be  left  a  matter 
of  good  intention  and  of  enthusiasm  not  completely  purged 
of  sentimentality.  Noble  ideals  must  be  given  a  realistic 
foundation  and  justified  before  the  bar  of  sober  reason  or 
they  will  be  viewed  askance  by  the  matter-of-fact  people 
who  have  society's  fortune  in  charge.  But  if  reason  and 
enthusiasm  combine  they  will  in  the  long  run  carry  every- 
thing before  them — and  the  run  will  not  be  so  very  long 
either  in  this  day  and  generation.  Socialism,  if  it  is  to 
conquer,  must  be  a  philosophy  as  well  as  a  religion;  it  must 
be  capable  not  only  of  attracting  but  also  of  convincing. 
It  must  appeal  to  sober  second  thought. 

When  we  ask  what  socialism  is,  we  are  met  by  many  and 
varied  answers.  Sometimes  the  term,  socialistic,  is  used 
as  an  adjective  to  qualify  measures  which  break  with  past 
principles  and  methods,  especially  those  of  the  so-called 
laissez  faire.  Business  men,  accustomed  to  have  their  own 
way  in  the  use  of  what  they  call  their  own  and  to  conduct 
affairs  as  it  seems  right  to  them,  are  inclined  to  call  all 
social  control  of  a  novel  sort  socialistic.  Thus  legislation 
which  has  for  its  aim  the  betterment  of  the  conditions  of 
labor  in  regard  to  hours,  surroundings  or  instruments  is 
usually  called  socialistic  by  employers  of  the  old  school. 
So  far  as  this  deepened  control  does  bear  witness  to  the 


6  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

growth  of  a  new  outlook  whose  consequences  we  cannot 
yet  foresee,  the  term  stands  for  a  contrast  of  a  significant 
sort.  The  social  good  is  opposed  to  what  seems  to  the 
individual  to  be  his  good.  Because  socialism  accepts  this 
same  ultimate  standard,  the  adjective,  socialistic,  has  a 
certain  appropriateness.  There  is  present  the  hint  of  the 
realization  that,  with  present  institutions,  the  employer 
has  powers  which  may  be  used  in  an  anti-social  way.  But 
any  sum  of  measures  which  are  socialistic  in  this  sense 
would  not  necessarily  be  identical  with  socialism. 

Condemnatory  definitions  of  socialism  are  very  common. 
For  instance,  Roscher,  a  German  economist,  defines  it  as 
consisting  of  "those  tendencies  which  demand  a  greater 
regard  for  the  common  weal  than  agrees  with  human 
nature."  The  question  is,  Who  is  to  be  judge  of  this 
agreement  with  human  nature?  This  definition  passes  by 
objective  characteristics  and  stresses  subjective  elements. 
A  similar  flaw  is  apparent  in  the  definition  offered  by 
Adolf  Held — "We  may  define  as  socialistic  every  tendency 
which  demands  the  subordination  of  the  individual  will 
to  the  community."  The  term,  subordination,  has  here  a 
deprecatory  flavor;  it  is  evident  that  such  subordination 
as  is  implied  is  considered  unwarranted  and  harmful. 

Next  in  order  are  mechanical  definitions,  definitions 
which  miss  both  the  spirit  and  method  of  socialism.  Pro- 
fessor Janet  in  his  book,  "The  Origins  of  Contemporary 
Socialism,"  wrote  as  follows: — "We  call  socialism  every 
doctrine  which  teaches  that  the  State  has  a  right  to  correct 
the  inequality  of  wealth  which  exists  among  men  and  to 
establish  legally  the  balance  by  taking  from  those  who  have 
too  much  in  order  to  give  to  those  who  have  not  enough 
and  that  in  a  permanent  manner.  .  .  ."  Socialism  does 
teach  that  society  has  the  right  to  modify  economic  rela- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  MODERN  SOCIALISM  7 

tions,  but  so  do  all  contemporary  political  theorists.  The 
important  questions  are  How?  To  what  degree?  To 
what  end? 

Many  definitions  which  remain  vague  stress  the  spirit 
of  socialism  and  thus  bring  out  a  feature  which  is  neglected 
by  those  already  offered.  There  is  an  ethical  atmosphere 
surrounding  the  socialist  movement  which  is  peculiarly 
modern.  It  is  the  spiritual  matrix  of  all  that  is  best  in  the 
social  and  political  innovations  of  the  last  two  centuries. 
Just  because  socialism  is  filled  with  this  spirit,  it  must 
have  an  essential  validity  even  though  various  doctrines 
attached  to  it  by  past  thinkers  must  be  given  up.  The 
heart  of  any  large  movement  is  its  purpose.  If  this  be 
good,  it  can  never  go  far  wrong — especially  if  its  success 
is  gradual  and  permits  growth.  We  need  a  voluntaristic 
interpretation  of  society  corresponding  to  the  emphasis 
laid  upon  the  will  in  recent  psychology.  Definitions  of 
movements  have  been  too  intellectualistic;  they  have  not 
recognized  that  their  objects  are  creative  movements  and 
not  mere  cut-and-dried  programs.  With  this  point  ii. 
mind,  let  us  glance  at  a  couple  of  definitions  which  in- 
troduce the  ethical  spirit  of  socialism. 

Proudhon,  one  of  the  founders  of  socialism,  was  ex- 
amined by  a  magistrate  after  the  French  revolution  of 
1848  and,  in  the  course  of  the  examination,  was  asked, 
What  is  socialism?  He  replied,  "Every  aspiration  to- 
wards the  amelioration  of  society."  "In  that  case,"  said 
the  magistrate,  "we  are  all  socialists."  This  answer 
reminds  us  of  the  remark  of  the  English  statesman,  Sir 
William  Harcourt,  "We  are  all  socialists  now."  There 
can  be  little  doubt  that  there  is  to-day'a  certain  community 
of  intention.  Divergence  arises  only  with  the  attempt  to 
make  this  intention  explicit;  too  often  it  is  only  sentimental 


8  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

well-wishing  which  takes  fright  at  serious  plans  to  make 
the  intention  pass  over  into  action.  Another  definition 
which  introduces  purpose  is  that  given  by  Littre,  the 
French  positivist:  "Socialism  is  a  tendency  to  modify  the 
present  state,  under  the  impulse  of  an  idea  of  economic 
amelioration  and  by  the  discussion  and  intervention  of  the 
laboring  classes."  Here  we  have  the  new  element  of  the 
social  location  of  the  movement.  The  laboring  classes 
are  supposed  to  play  the  chief  role  in  the  development 
and  introduction  of  socialism. 

It  is  very  interesting,  as  Flint  in  his  book  on  socialism 
points  out,  that  Karl  Marx,  one  of  the  founders  of  modern 
socialism,  gives  no  formal  definition  of  it. 

Let  us  see  whether  we  can  discover  the  purpose  which 
controls  the  socialist  movement  and  let  us  then  pass  from 
the  general  purpose  to  the  question  of  what  means  are 
proposed.  Only  in  this  way  is  it  possible  to  work  out  a 
definition  of  socialism  which,  though  tentative,  is  true  to 
the  movement.  We  can  then  hope  to  see  the  purpose 
struggling  to  incarnate  itself  in  the  actual  movement. 
After  this  is  done,  we  can  offer  suggestions  of  our  own  just 
because  socialism  is  a  growing  thing,  affected  by  new 
knowledge  of  society  and  by  actual  changes  in  society 
however  brought  about.  The  process  of  discovering  a 
definition  is  often  of  more  value  than  the  product  taken  by 
itself,  demanding  as  it  does  the  analysis  of  various  ideas 
and  a  study  of  their  relations.  Thus  Plato's  Republic  is 
built  up  around  the  attempt  to  define  justice  and  his 
definition  can  be  understood  only  in  the  light  of  the  entire 
discussion.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  all  the 
sciences  the  definitions  given  are  merely  compendious 
statements  of  the  whole  content.  The  elements  of  the 
proposition  secure  their  meaning  from  the  conclusions  of 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  MODERN  SOCIALISM  9 

the  entire  treatment.    For  the  beginner,  a  definition  is  a 
suggestion;  for  the  scholar,  it  is  a  summary. 

Socialism  is  a  democratic  movement  whose  purpose  is 
the  securing  of  an  economic  organization  of  society  which 
will  give  the  maximum  possible  at  any  one  time  of  justice 
and  liberty.  Let  us  start  with  this  definition  and  see  what 
it  involves. 

Socialism   would   come   under   the   genus,   democratic  ( 
movement.    It  is  democratic  in  two  ways :  first,  it  aims  at  1 
the  good  of  all  instead  of  the  good  of  the  few;  second,  it  is  I 
democratic  in  its  location  since  it  finds  its  leaders  among  ' 
those  who  have  thrown  themselves  body  and  soul  into  the 
fight  for  the  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  the  masses. 
Let  us  consider  these  two  features  of  the  movement. 

It  is  maintained  by  socialists  that  the  governing  class 
in  society  has  never  yet  sought  the  good  of  all.  There  has 
always  been  a  bias  in  favor  of  those  who  were  already  in 
control.  What  was  desired  at  the  best  was  the  good  of  the 
many  so  far  as  this  was  compatible  with  the  prerogatives  of 
the  social  group  which  was  dominant.  In  other  words,  the 
socialist  maintains  that  there  has  never  yet  been  a  true 
democracy.  Oligarchies  have  never  succeeded  in  being 
anything  more  than  intermittently  charitable.  Aristo- 
cratic societies  have  inevitably  laid  stress  upon  subordina- 
tion and  have  regarded  the  few  as  the  portion  which  gave 
meaning  to  the  lives  of  all.  So  far  as  a  justification  was 
sought,  it  was  found  either  in  terms  of  innate  differences 
due  to  blood  or  to  a  necessary  divergence  in  function. 
Our  own  plutocracy  was  founded  ostensibly  upon  a  dem- 
ocratic theory,  but  one  which  has  proven  itself  to  be  false 
because  too  atomic  and  with  too  much  stress  upon  fixed 
rights.  The  result  has  been  the  shame-faced  growth  of  a 
vulgar  type  of  aristocracy.  It  is  the  inadequacy  of  the 


10  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

basis  adopted  by  our  so-called  democracy  that  socialism 
attacks.  It  demands  that  the  good  of  all  become  the 
avowed  end  of  society  and  that  conscious  and  persistent 
efforts  be  made  to  attain  this  good  in  spite  of  the  inertia 
of  institutions.  The  means  to  attain  this  goal  should  be 
made  the  object  of  reflection  and  of  thorough  investiga- 
tion. Socialism  is  confident  that  it  is,  itself,  on  the  right 
track  in  its  emphasis  on  cooperation  and  its  denial  of  the 
social  value  of  special  privileges. 

The  location  of  the  movement  is  democratic  as  well  as 
its  purpose.  Modern  socialism  does  not  await  the  benev- 
olent action  of  those  in  power  nor  does  it  look  upon  justice 
and  liberty  as  benefits  conferred  in  an  external  way  upon 
passive  recipients.  Liberty  and  justice  have  always  been 
achievements  bought  and  paid  for  by  character  and  effort. 
Those  who  would  be  free  must  themselves  strike  the  blow. 
Revolutionary  movements  must  be  firmly  based  on  the 
aspirations  and  desires  of  those  most  interested.  Socialism 
is  now  and,  if  it  is  to  win,  must  always  be  a  popular  move- 
ment. Its  leaders  are  sometimes  manual  laborers  who  have 
continued  to  identify  themselves  with  their  social  group 
and  have  fought  its  fights  from  a  clear  and  intimate  knowl- 
edge of  its  needs  and  yet  with  a  larger  vision  of  a  more 
happily  organized  society;  sometimes  they  are  men  of 
other  social  groups  who  have  felt  the  injustice  of  pres- 
ent arrangements  and  have  thrown  in  their  lot  with  those 
who  suffer  the  most  from  things  as  they  are.  There  can 
be  no  question  that  socialism  is  democratic  in  both  of 
these  ways.  It  is  a  continuation  of  the  struggle  for  polit- 
ical freedom  and  works  for  the  extension  of  the  conditions 
of  a  free  life  to  the  people  at  large. 

Let  us  pass  next  to  the  differentia,  that  is,  to  the  specific 
attribute  which  differentiates  socialism  from  other  dem- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  MODERN  SOCIALISM          11 

ocratic  movements.  We  have  given  this  in  terms  of  pur- 
pose. Socialism  is  the  democratic  movement  whose  pur- 
pose it  is  to  secure  an  economic  organization  which  will  give 
the  maximum  possible  at  any  one  time  of  justice  and  lib- 
erty. If  this  differentia  holds  good,  all  men  who  are  work- 
ing for  such  an  economic  organization  will  be  socialists. 
So  long  as  we  lay  stress  upon  kindredship  in  ethical  spirit, 
this  conclusion  follows  and  is  a  test  of  the  truth  of  the  def- 
inition advanced.  And  I  for  one  am  inclined  to  lay  far 
more  stress  upon  this  ethical  unity  than  upon  agreement 
in  articles  of  creed.  The  aim  and  the  desire  are  the  im- 
portant psychological  facts  and  therefore  cannot  help  but 
be  of  tremendous  social  and  political  significance.  If  the 
majority  of  men  sincerely  desired  this  goal,  it  would  be 
brought  about.  The  differences  between  them  would  be 
secondary  for  they  would  concern  the  means;  and  men 
are  far  more  willing  to  discuss  and  compromise  upon  means 
than  ends. 

One  of  the  ablest  of  contemporary  English  writers  has 
stressed  the  need  of  what  he  calls  conversion.  The  men 
who  direct  and  control  the  business  world  are  men  of  little 
education  and  of  no  imagination  outside  the  region  of  busi- 
ness. "They  do  not  really  see  the  facts  to  which  socialists 
call  attention,  because  they  do  not  really  feel  them.  .  .  . 
They  have  never  experienced  that  upheaval  of  the  soul 
which  has  made  the  socialist  a  socialist  by  showing  him 
everything  in  a  new  light,  both  the  facts  of  the  present 
and  the  possibilities  of  the  future.  .  .  .  After  conversion, 
it  is  true,  they  might  still  be  against  almost  everything  that 
socialists  have  ever  proposed,  though  I  do  not  think  it 
likely  that  they  would  be.  But  even  so,  their  opposition 
would  be  of  a  quite  different  kind  from  what  it  is  now. 
It  would  be  that  of  men  who  want  to  help  reform,  not  to 


12  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

hinder  it.  'If  such  and  such  a  thing  is  not  practicable,' 
they  would  say,  'then  we  must  try  so  and  so.'  Whereas 
now  their  attitude  most  commonly  is,  '  we  must  make  out 
that  everything  is  impracticable,  in  order  that  nothing  may 
be  done/"1  I  am  inclined  to  agree  with  this  writer  that 
the  psychical  factor  is  of  tremendous  importance;  socialism 
is  really  founded  on  values  and  these  must  be  apprehended 
in  a  vital  way. 

It  is  an  old  ethical  dilemma  whether  the  intention  of 
doing  justice  is  more  important  than  the  knowledge  how 
to  do  justice.  Both  are  necessary  to  the  actual  doing  of 
the  just  act,  but  we  can  hope  for  the  knowledge  if  only  the 
intention  be  present  in  a  driving  and  unappeasable  form. 
Knowledge,  however,  is  not  apt  to  come  to  us  unless  the 
will  be  present.  There  is  much  truth  in  the  religious  em- 
phasis on  the  thirst  for  righteousness  and  upon  the- need 
for  what  may  be  called  conversion.  If  we  really  value  a 
change  and  consider  it  of  high  importance,  we  do  not  rest 
until  we  have  done  our  best  to  make  it  a  reality;  but,  if  we 
do  not  judge  it  to  be  of  supreme  importance,  if  we  are  un- 
able to  exclaim,  "Let  justice  be  though  the  heavens 
fall,  "our  minds  will  not  work  in  search  of  the  requisite 
means.  And  what  is  true  of  the  individual  is  true  of  the 
nation.  If  a  nation  does  not  honor  justice,  it  will  not 
accomplish  great  things.  It  would  seem,  then,  that  the 
purpose  which  dominates  a  movement  is  the  most  im- 
portant feature  of  that  movement.  Other  features  may 
change  with  new  knowledge  and  new  social  conditions 
but,  so  long  as  that  remains  hot  at  its  center,  the  move- 
ment will  be  the  same. 

Socialism  is  predominantly  a  movement  which  concerns 
itself  with  the  economic  re-organization  of  society.  We 
1  G.  Lowes  Dickinson,  "Justice  and  Liberty,"  pp.  7  and  8. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  MODERN  SOCIALISM          13 

must  not  forget,  however,  that  such  a  re-organization 
cannot  take  place  apart  from  a  re-adjustment  of  political 
and  general  social  relations.  It  will  have  its  reverbera- 
tion all  along  the  line.  Society  is  not  a  machine  part 
of  which  can  be  improved  without  affecting  the  rela- 
tions among  the  remaining  parts.  Now  many  socialists 
have  been  particularly  interested  in  some  feature  of  society 
such  as  the  aesthetic  and  have  measured  their  hopes 
in  terms  of  their  expectation  of  a  healthier  and  more 
widely-based  art.  Such  a  man  was  William  Morris,  and 
it  would  not  be  erroneous  to  think  of  John  Ruskin  in  this 
connection.  To  this  end  certain  conditions  were  necessary 
and  modern  civilization  with  its  stress  upon  competition 
and  admiration  for  mere  wholesale  production  could  not 
furnish  these  conditions.  Other  socialists  approach 
society  from  the  side  of  personality.  Warped,  stunted  and 
purblind  souls  cause  them  pain  as  sharp  as  a  wound  and 
they  cry  out  in  anger  against  those  conditions  which  pro- 
duce them,  refusing  to  believe  that  such  conditions  are 
irremediable.  Still  other  socialists  fix  their  gaze  less  upon 
these  values  than  upon  the  actual  massing  of  the  battle; 
they  are  in  the  midst  of  an  actual  fight  in  which  the  masses 
are  somewhat  blindly  pressing  against  the  forces  of  their 
masters.  For  centuries  this  struggle  has  continued,  the 
many  working  forward  from  the  marshland  with  its  fevers 
and  penury  to  the  more  pleasant  lands  beyond  but  retarded 
by  their  ignorance  and  lack  of  weapons.  It  has,  moreover, 
been  in  large  measure  an  unplanned  struggle;  the  eyes  of 
the  combatants  have  been  withholden  so  that  they  have 
scarcely  seen  what  they  were  doing.  The  movement  of  so- 
ciety is  too  impersonal  to  be  judged  in  terms  of  personal 
ethics.  The  task  of  the  socialists  as  this  large  group  sees  it 
is  to  release  the  spell  of  unconsciousness  by  riding  into  the 


14  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

melee  and  shouting  those  battle-cries  which  cannot  but 
awaken  the  combatants  to  a  realization  of  their  situation. 

But  is  our  definition  of  socialism  adequate  as  yet? 
Does  it  delimit  the  movement  from  other  kindred  dem- 
ocratic movements?  Thus  far  I  have  stressed  the  living 
purpose  of  socialism  and  have  been  catholic  rather  than 
sectarian  in  my  attitude.  It  is  best  to  realize  to  the  full 
the  spiritual  fellowship  of  modern  democracy  and  to  draw 
strength  from  the  nobility  and  justice  of  the  purpose 
which  is  beginning  to  sway  it.  The  support  of  the  opinion 
of  those  who  are  unselfishly  working  for  the  good  of  human- 
ity is  not  a  small  thing  nor  is  it  to  be  despised.  Socialism 
must  be  in  line  with  the  profounder  instincts  of  the  major- 
ity if  it  is  to  succeed — if  it  is  even  to  be  what  it  supposes 
itself  to  be,  the  process  leading  to  the  final  stages  of  democ- 
racy. 

To  define  socialism,  however,  as  adequately  as  a  living 
movement  can  be  defined,  we  must  pass  from  the  purpose 
which  is  given  by  the  time-spirit  to  a  knowledge  of  the  con- 
templated means.  As  we  have  already  pointed  out,  both 
are  necessary  to  the  accomplishment  of  any  complex  task. 
Without  a  fairly  explicit  idea  of  the  means,  the  end  is  al- 
ways dim  and  fluctuating.  We  do  not  know  how  to  focus 
our  actions  and  purposes  unless  the  end  has  succeeded  in 
taking  up  the  means  into  itself  and  thus  defining  itself  more 
fully.  Strictly  speaking,  the  end  is  an  abstraction  without 
the  means  just  as  a  result  in  a  social  field  has  little  meaning 
without  the  processes  which  brought  it  about.  It  makes 
all  the  difference  in  the  world  how  deeds  are  achieved — 
whether  by  arbitrary  and  individualistic  enterprise  from 
above  or  by  the  slow  cooperation  of  the  many;  in  like 
manner,  the  end  which  is  divorced  from  the  means  is  apt 
to  be  conceived  sentimentally  and  vaguely.  Now  it  is  in 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  MODERN  SOCIALISM          15 

the  theory  of  the  means  that  the  definition  of  socialism 
secures  completion.  Here  socialism  becomes  distinct  and 
unambiguous,  a  movement  not  easily  confused  with  others. 

It  would  be  easy  to  describe  the  means  advocated  by 
socialism  in  terms  of  conventional  contrasts  such  as  that 
between  competition  and  cooperation  but  such  contrasts 
are  essentially  misleading.  Cooperation  and  competition 
are  not  so  exclusive  of  one  another  as  is  sometimes  sup- 
posed. Socialism  does  not  involve  the  elimination  of 
healthy  experiment  and  responsible  emulation;  but  it  does 
stress  social  control  and  social  welfare  as  against  irrespon- 
sibility and  merely  private  profit.  Thus  the  temper  and 
processes  of  socialism  represent  a  different  emphasis  and 
a  changed  direction  from  those  characteristic  of  our  tradi- 
tional individualism .  Social  relations  bulk  larger  and  there 
is  a  finer  sense  of  the  importance  to  the  various  individuals 
involved  of  the  industrial  institutions  with  which  their 
lives  are  bound  up.  The  center  of  social  gravity  is  human 
welfare  rather  than  property. 

We  may  say,  then,  that  socialism  desires  the  introduc- 
tion of  group  ownership  and  control  wherever  feasible  in 
order  that  the  motive  of  private  profit  may  be  subor- 
dinated to  that  of  human  welfare.  Here,  once  more,  we 
are  ultimately  face  to  face  with  an  ethical  choice.  On  the 
one  hand,  there  is  the  spirit  of  personal  push  and  of  in- 
dividual aggrandizement;  on  the  other,  the  spirit  of  social 
achievement,  the  consideration  of  the  group,  the  sense  of 
organic  dependence,  the  lessening  of  the  desire  for  mere 
conspicuousness.  Cooperation  stresses  social  relations, 
trains  the  imagination  to  think  of  the  self  as  in  large  meas- 
ure a  function  of  society  as  a  whole,  removes  the  unholy 
emphasis  on  wealth  as  the  end  of  life  and  makes  life  less  a 
grim  battle  against  pain  and  more  a  valiant  and  successful 


16  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

campaign  against  the  niggardliness  of  nature.  This  social- 
izing of  industry  should  not  diminish  the  need  for  individ- 
ual responsibility  but  rather  hearten  it  because  lessening 
the  unholy  pressure  to  which  the  individual  is  now  sub- 
jected. 

Again,  socialism  denies  the  justice  of  those  traditional 
institutions  which  give  individuals  unequal  opportunities 
for  self-development.  It  is  at  this  point  that  socialism 
and  true  individualism  are  at  one.  Both  value  personality 
as  something  unique  and  humanly  final  and  as  somehow 
the  ultimate  term  in  the  social  equation.  Such  inequal- 
ities as  exist  must  be  rational  and  necessary  if  they  are  to 
be  defensible.  Now  uncritical  thought  is  prone  to  continue 
institutions  and  customs  which  bring  about  adventitious 
inequalities  because  these  social  methods  justified  them- 
selves in  the  past  by  a  certain  rough  utility.  Only  very 
slowly  is  it  realized  that  new  conditions  demand  new 
customs  and  new  institutions.  And  yet  this  slowness 
permits  the  continuance  of  mal-adjustments  which  cause 
untold  misery  and  prevent  the  possible  increase  of  human 
welfare.  The  stock  example  of  this  inertia  1  is  of  course  the 
continuance  of  feudal  rights  in  France  long  after  the  cor- 
responding duties  had  ceased  to  carry  meaning.  But 
there  is  an  example  in  America  which  does  not  fall  far 
short  of  this  in  its  irrationality:  "A  great  part  of  the  120 
billions  of  American  wealth — as  the  statisticians  report  it- 
is  made  up  of  one  form  or  another  of  capitalized  privilege 

1  Mr.  Brooks  Adams  has  developed  the  theory  of  such  inertia  at  some 
length  in  his  interesting  study  "The  Theory  of  Social  Revolutions." 
"Briefly  the  precedents  induce  the  inference  that  privileged  classes 
seldom  have  the  intelligence  to  protect  themselves  by  adaptation  when 
nature  turns  against  them,  and,  up  to  the  present  moment,  the  old 
privileged  class  in  the  United  States  has  shown  little  promise  of  being  an 
exception  to  the  rule."  P.  33. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  MODERN  SOCIALISM          17 

or  of  capitalized  predation.  If,  indeed,  our  computations 
include  all  forms  and  manifestations  of  private  claim  and 
of  private  property  in  that  to  which  no  individual  could 
originally  have  made  good  his  private  right  of  enjoyment, 
it  is  probably  not  going  too  far  to  assert  that  two  thirds  of 
the  durable  private  bases  of  income  in  the  United  States 
are  nothing  else  than  this  capitalization  of  privilege  or  of 
predation."1  Unqualified  inheritance  and  property  rights 
cause  a  mal-distribution  which  is  approaching  that  which 
we  are  taught  so  to  reprobate  in  the  case  of  feudal  France. 
Just  because  the  form  of  the  rights  is  slightly  different  we 
are  too  apt  to  forget  that  the  ethical  principle  is  the  same. 
Predation  is  always  predation  and  rights  without  duties 
are  socially  intolerable. 

The  strongest  indictment  which  the  socialist  has  to  pass 
upon  the  principle  of  competition  as  this  is  defended  by 
the  individualist  is  that  the  conditions  of  a  just  competi- 
tion have  never  been  achieved.  He  must,  therefore,  be 
excused  if  he  thinks  that  the  well-intentioned  advocates  of 
the  "New  Freedom"  are  as  Utopian  as  he  ever  dreamed 
of  being  in  his  wildest  moments.  It  is  simply  absurd  to 
suppose  that  individuals  will  ever  be  able  to  compete  on 
equal  terms  with  one  another  without  fundamental  changes 
in  our  social  institutions.  Even  then,  it  would  require 
an  omniscient  government  prone  to  interfere  and  to  spy 
out  in  order  to  keep  the  atoms  from  associating  and  se- 
curing a  monopoly  element.  Yet  sound  political  philos- 
ophy demands  that  external  governmental  interference  be 
kept  within  decided  limits.  An  arbitrarily  maintained 
competition  or  an  increasingly  socialized  industry  seem, 
then,  to  be  the  alternatives  which  confront  us.  One  thing 
at  least  is  certain — this  country  has  made  a  botch  of  in- 

'     =v 

1  Davenport,  "  Economics  of  Enterprise,"  p.  519. 


18  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

dividualism,  that  is,  of  competitive  individualism  working 
within  the  setting  furnished  by  the  traditional  ethical  and 
legal  forms.  We  shall  have  occasion  later  to  examine  the 
nature  of  competition  so  we  need  not  analyze  it  further  at 
present  when  our  interest  is  mainly  in  making  clear  the  dif- 
ference between  socialism  and  competition  for  private  profit. 

There  are,  then,  two  kinds  of  individualism  and  these 
must  be  met  by  different  arguments.  To  contrast  social- 
ism with  one  of  them  does  not  necessarily  distinguish  it 
adequately  from  the  other.  As  we  shall  see,  it  has  much 
in  common  with  one  type  of  individualism  while  almost 
wholly  opposed  to  the  other. 

The  traditional  individualist,  best  represented  by  the 
ordinary  man  of  business,  is  a  conservative;  he  is  sat- 
isfied to  play  the  game  as  his  fathers  played  it  with  no 
perception  that  the  situation  has  changed  in  the  mean- 
time. He  knows  that  his  fathers  went  by  stage-coach  and 
had  not  a  tithe  of  those  marvellous  improvements  which 
have  changed  his  whole  mode  of  life  yet  he  has  not  imag- 
ination enough  to  realize  that  methods  and  customs  which 
worked  well  enough  under  local  conditions  are  ill-adapted 
to  the  present.  Such  a  man  emphasizes  rights  and  accepts 
institutions  no  matter  to  what  gross  inequalities  of  fate 
they  lead  and  to  what  empty  and  formal  freedom  they 
reduce  the  majority.  To  him  the  socialist  replies  that  the 
state  of  society  as  it  is  at  present  is  intolerable  to  those 
who  are  able  to  free  their  perception  from  the  blindness 
cast  by  use  and  wont.  What  we  need  is  the  social  prophet 
who  will  cry  aloud  with  the  same  fervor  and  forcefulness 
that  made  the  old  Hebrew  prophets  so  effective.  Once 
aroused,  cannot  man  with  his  gift  of  consciousness  and  his 
capacity  to  plan  and  rectify  improve  upon  this  product  of 
rule-of -thumb  and  of  unmastered  forces? 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  MODERN  SOCIALISM          19 

But  the  reforming  individualist  is  the  type  who  is  most 
nearly  akin  to  the  socialist  in  spirit  and  is  therefore  his 
most  worthy  opponent.  Each  can  learn  from  the  other. 
If  the  socialist  is  inclined  at  times  to  merge  the  individual 
too  completely  in  society  and  to  infringe  upon  that  right 
of  free  creative  play  so  necessary  to  a  vigorous  personality, 
it  is  likewise  true  that  the  individualist  overlooks  the  need 
of  mutual  adaptation  when  social  processes  are  as  complex 
as  they  are  and  forgets  that  there  are  activities  too  large 
and  socially  too  important  to  be  left  in  the  hands  of  in- 
dividuals to  be  run  for  the  sake  of  profit.  As  the  case 
stands,  the  modern  socialist  denies  that  his  ideals  are 
bureaucratic;  he  claims  to  cherish  liberty  and  to  be  an 
enemy  of  the  undue  extension  of  routine.  But  no  move- 
ment is  without  its  dangers,  without  tendencies  to  ex- 
tremes which  need  to  be  held  in  check.  The  tradition  of 
individualism  will  consequently  act  as  a  kind  of  spiritual 
counterbalance  to  the  levelling  forces  which  are  liable  to 
manifest  themselves  in  a  collectivistic  democracy.  The 
personal  ideals  of  socialist  and  reforming  individualist 
would  seem,  then,  to  be  less  sharply  opposed  than  is 
usually  assumed.  Both  aim  at  the  proper  harmony  of 
personality  and  efficiency.  The  perspective  is  slightly 
different,  the  psychological  atmosphere  distinct  enough 
to  cause  a  different  mood;  but  a  catholic  and  broad  social- 
ism could  readily  include  both  motives  and  be  the  richer 
for  them.  On  the  whole,  the  individualist  stresses  personal 
success  and  the  life  of  the  family — the  narrower  and  more 
primitive  social  groups — while  the  socialist  brings  into  the 
picture  those  connective  relations  of  interdependence  which 
make  society  something  corresponding  to  an  organism. 

But  the  socialist  feels  that  he  has  something  more  pos- 
itive to  offer  than  has  the  reforming  individualist.  In  his 


20  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

eyes,  industry  has  passed  beyond  the  stage  of  individual 
management  for  the  sake  of  private  profit.  Though  it 
works  still,  he  is  convinced  that  it  involves  wastes  and 
bad  distributions  which  make  a  re-organization  desirable. 
Processes  are  beginning  to  weigh  in  our  eyes  as  well  as  re- 
sults. Human  cost  is  bulking  larger  in  our  minds  than 
formerly.  We  are  beginning  to  regard  industry  as  in- 
volving a  kind  of  social  partnership  which  properly  im- 
plies rights,  responsibilities  and  consequences  which  are 
beyond  the  just  sovereignty  of  any  individual  or  arbitrary 
group  of  individuals.  It  would  seem  that  society  in- 
stinctively feels  that  it  must  assume  greater  control  of 
what  affects  it  so  nearly.  But  how  can  this  control  be 
best  applied?  By  the  political  state  or  by  socializing  in- 
dustry? Perhaps  by  a  combination  of  both  expedients? 
These  are  the  problems  of  means  which  are  rising  to  con- 
sciousness within  the  modern  state.  And  in  our  conception 
of  control  and  of  the  problems  which  necessitate  it  we  must 
not  limit  our  outlook  to  merely  economic  efficiency,  to 
mere  quantity  of  production,  but  must  enlarge  it  to  take 
in  social  efficiency,  that  is,  the  welfare  of  the  citizens. 
Economics  has  been  isolated  too  much  from  the  other 
social  sciences  just  because  society  has  been  looked  at  too 
mechanically.  The  business  class  and  the  specialist  have 
had  too  penetrative  a  voice.  Should  we  not  ask  of  any 
economic  system  whether  the  distribution  it  involves  is  a 
just  one  and  conducive  to  the  real  liberty  of  the  people  at 
large?  Unless  this  question  be  asked  and  considered, 
programs  of  control  which  leave  the  distribution  of  the 
product  essentially  as  it  was  are  open  to  the  suspicion  that 
the  purpose  is  only  to  patch  up  a  system  which  has  broken 
down  in  its  original  form  and  revealed  itself  as  inherently 
anti-social. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  MODERN  SOCIALISM          21 

We  are  at  last  in  a  position  to  complete  our  tentative 
definition  of  socialism  by  adding  a  differentia  to  distin- 
guish it  from  other  movements  which  have  the  same  ethical 
purpose.  Socialism,  we  may  say,  is  a  democratic  move- 
ment whose  purpose  is  the  securing  of  an  economic  re- 
organization of  society  which  will  give  the  maximum  pos- 
sible of  justice,  liberty  and  efficiency  and  whose  plan  is 
the  gradual  socializing  of  industry  to  the  degree  and  ex- 
tent that  seem  experimentally  feasible.  Along  with  this 
process  will  take  place  those  political  and  legal  and  in- 
stitutional reforms  which  even  individualism  is  coming  to 
regard  as  necessary. 

It  will  take  the  American  with  his  pioneer  habits  and 
optimism  some  time  to  realize  that  the  day  of  successful 
private  enterprise  is  past  for  the  great  majority  and  that 
the  cultivation  of  such  an  outlook  with  its  tendency  to 
recklessness  and  selfishness  only  debauches  those  who  are 
trained  in  it  and  makes  society  an  easy  victim  for  those 
who  are  allowed  to  play  with  loaded  dice.  The  democratic 
ideal  should  consider  the  lot  of  the  many,  of  those  honest 
and  industrious  workers  who  perform  a  profoundly  useful 
function  for  the  state,  as  well  as  those  who  are  able  to 
rise  from  the  ranks  by  the  possession  of  superior  intellect, 
will-power  or  cunning.  Before  America  will  turn  to  social- 
ism it  must  be  converted — a  slow  process  this  when  it  con- 
cerns a  nation — and  learn  to  look  beyond  mere  quantitative 
achievement  to  the  sane  qualities  of  life.  It  must  thirst 
for  real  liberty,  rational  equality,  justice  and  a  noble  life 
and  be  so  convinced  of  their  transcendent  worth  that  it 
will  not  hesitate  to  look  upon  rights  and  institutions  as 
valuable  and  deserving  of  consideration  only  so  far  as  they 
are  clearly  conducive  to  these  ends. 


CHAPTER  II 
SOCIALISM  IN  THE  MAKING 

A  DEFINITION  of  socialism  is  not  by  itself  sufficient  to 
introduce  a  beginner  to  the  actual  movement.  There  are 
a  thousand  and  one  points  in  regard  to  the  methods  em- 
ployed and  the  attitudes  taken  toward  tactical  questions 
which  can  be  understood  only  in  the  light  of  the  history  of 
the  movement.  Only  by  tracing  socialism  from  its  vague 
beginnings  and  noting  the  changes  in  both  theory  and 
practice  which  a  wider  experience  pressed  home  will  he 
who  is  really  desirous  of  seeing  eye  to  eye  with  the  en- 
lightened socialist  gain  that  concrete  appreciation  of  the 
living  movement  which  will  enable  him  to  judge  it  justly 
and  even  a  little  leniently.  It  takes  time  for  a  social  theory 
to  gain  depth  and  adequacy  and  to  outgrow  those  tempta- 
tions to  narrowness  and  sectarianism  which  beset  it.  And 
he  who  would  possess  this  maturer  temper  and  insight 
cannot  do  better  than  follow  step  by  step  the  growth  of 
the  socialist  view  of  society.  Such  an  approach  will  give 
him  an  experiential  background  of  inestimable  value  and 
put  him  in  a  position  to  pass  judgments  truer  to  a  larger 
range  of  facts  than  would  otherwise  be  possible. 

Nothing  better  reveals  those  changes  in  temper  and  out- 
look which  gradually  take  place  in  society  than  changes  in 
social  theories.  These  are,  as  it  were,  the  outward  and 
visible  signs  of  those  new  situations  which  are  constantly 
arising  in  the  body  politic.  Institutions,  customs  and 
methods  are  largely  unconscious  creations  due  to  the 
myriad-fold  experiments  which  are  occurring  in  society. 

22  • 


SOCIALISM  IN  THE  MAKING  23 

They  are  the  mass-products  of  adjustments,  changes  in 
direction  of  interest  and  of  the  influence  of  newly-dawning 
ideals.  Reflection  registers  these  changes  more  than  it 
creates  them  and  the  theories  it  constructs  are  to  the  stu- 
dent an  extremely  interesting  record  of  the  forces  at  work 
in  society.  It  is  through  a  study  of  the  tendencies  ex- 
pressed by  these  theories  that  it  becomes  possible  to  pre- 
dict the  trend  of  affairs  some  way  ahead.  There  is  some- 
thing analogous  in  this  to  the  plotting  of  a  curve  by  a 
mathematician  when  a  certain  number  of  points  are  given. 
The  socialist  is  convinced  that  the  greater  emphasis  placed 
to-day,  by  legislation  and  ethical  theory  alike,  upon  human 
values  is  the  public  announcement  of  a  new  ethos  or  spirit 
which  will  have  its  ultimate  effect  upon  institutions. 

Now  the  purpose  of  the  present  chapter  is  to  study 
socialism  in  the  making  in  order  that  we  may  better  under- 
stand the  necessarily  temporary  character  of  various  doc- 
trines associated  with  it,  and  follow  the  growth  of  more 
adequate  theories  and  programs.  Yet  we  shall  find  back 
of  them  all  a  certain  spirit  or  set  of  values  to  give  them 
continuity.  When  we  once  grasp  the  fact  that  it  is  this 
spirit  or  principle  that  is  fundamental  to  socialism,  we  shall 
be  less  likely  to  overstress  any  set  of  doctrines  connected 
with  the  name  of  some  distinguished  leader  such  as  Marx. 
Socialism  must  grow  just  as  society  itself  grows  if  it  ever 
hopes  to  be  put  into  practice. 

Many  socialists  dislike  to  admit  that  particular  theories 
once  held  in  high  repute  have  been  proven  erroneous. 
But  is  this  attitude  scientific?  Is  it  not  the  old  attempt 
to  claim  infallibility?  Such  an  attitude  savors  more  of  the 
spirit  of  orthodox  religion  than  of  science.  Science  is  more 
humble  for  it  expects  to  see  many  of  its  theories  modified 
in  essentials  and  even  discarded.  It  has  lost  false  shame 


24  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

for  it  knows  the  nature  of  human  progress.  Now  it  is  time 
for  socialism  to  learn  this  lesson  and  not  pretend  to  the 
possession  of  an  immutable  set  of  doctrines  given  by  a 
high  priest.  If  biologists  criticize  many  of  Darwin's 
hypotheses  in  regard  to  the  factors  at  work  in  evolution,  is 
it  lack  of  proper  reverence  to  Marx  to  point  out  short- 
comings in  his  views?  Surely  we  stand  on  the  shoulders 
of  such  men  as  Darwin  and  Marx  and  are  able  to  see  far- 
ther than  they  could.  Events  have  shaped  themselves 
so  that  it  does  not  require  a  very  wise  man  to  answer  ques- 
tions which  the  giants  of  the  past  could  not  solve  with  cer- 
tainty. Socialism  is__hoih  a  system  of  gradually  changing 
doctrines  and  a  set  of  values;  it  is  both  a  science  and  an 
ideal.  These  two  constituents  must  not  be  confused.  As 
a  system  of  doctrines,  it  must  change  in  accordance  with 
fuller  knowledge;  otherwise  it  has  no  right  to  claim  spir- 
itual kinship  with  science.  As  an  ideal,  it  has  more  in 
common  with  ethics,  with  that  philosophical  discipline 
which  deals  with  the  highest  good  and  the  means  to  its 
attainment.  Socialism  must  have  an  intellectual  formula- 
tion, but  this  formulation  is  less  fixed  than  the  purpose 
which  gives  it  life. 

In  order  to  encourage  socialism  to  relinquish  immutabil- 
ity as  a  false  ideal,  let  us  glance  at  the  situation  which  is 
confronting  political  economy,  its  dearest  enemy.  Econ- 
omists have  been  the  severest  critics  of  socialism  and  yet 
have  been  inclined  to  commit  the  same  sin,  that  of  ortho- 
doxy. It  should,  therefore,  be  interesting  to  the  socialist 
to  find  that  many  of  the  younger  economists  are  giving 
up  the  dogmatic  attitude  for  one  which  is  more  in  harmony 
with  modern  science  and  philosophy.  If  this  change  of 
attitude  spreads  in  both  ranks,  there  is  no  reason  why 
these  traditional  enemies  should  not  become  the  best  of 


SOCIALISM  IN  THE  MAKING  25 

friends.  The  difference  between  them  will  be  one  of  func- 
tion. For  these  reasons,  a  brief  application  of  the  histor- 
ical method  to  political  economy  will  serve  as  a  suggestive 
introduction  to  the  history  of  socialism. 

"Even  Ricardo,"  writes  Chapman,  "despite  the  cold 
light  of  his  purely  scientific  interest  was  not  entirely  suc- 
cessful. And  there  followed  others  who  were  amazingly 
successful  in  confounding  the  dry  scientific  point  of 
view  with  a  conception  of  society  as  a  system  of  unemo- 
tional atoms,  or  worse,  with  the  idea  that  a  soulless  mech- 
anism driven  by  self-interest  as  the  motive  power  was  the 
right  thing  to  aim  at.  By  the  doctrines  of  these  blun- 
dering teachers — for  whose  mistakes,  however,  the  masters 
of  the  new-born  science  were  in  some  measure  responsi- 
ble— political  and  social  sentiments  were  contaminated; 
and  the  country  was  condemned  to  pass  through  one  of 
the  greatest  crises  in  its  history,  that  occasioned  by  me- 
chanical invention  and  the  introduction  of  steam-power,  with- 
out benefit  of  much  mutual  helpfulness  and  sympathy."  1 
This  is  a  fair  statement  by  an  orthodox  economist  of 
the  danger  of  founding  maxims  upon  the  inadequate 
theories  of  special  social  sciences.  The  early  economists 
worked  within  the  presuppositions  and  prejudices  of  the 
business  class  of  their  age  and  therefore  reached  con- 
clusions which  are  out  of  harmony  with  the  beliefs  and 
values  of  a  time  which  is  broader  in  its  outlook  and 
more  democratically  based. 

There  is  something  inspiriting  in  the  following  language 
used  by  an  American  economist  and  the  socialist  should 
give  heed  to  the  intellectual  candor  of  the  man.  "Every 
art,"  writes  Davenport,  "must  have  its  corresponding 
science,  or  both  must  suffer.  It  is,  then,  for  someone  to 
1  "Political  Economy,"  p.  13.  Italics  mine. 


36  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

construct  an  economic  science  adapted  not  only  to  the 
requirements  of  the  facts  but  to  the  needs  of  their  ameli- 
oration. To  this  end  economics  must  cease  to  be  a  system 
of  apologetics,  the  creed  of  the  reactionary,  a  defense  of 
privilege,  a  social  soothing  sirup,  a  smug  pronouncement 
of  the  righteousness  of  whatever  is — with  the  still  more 
disastrous  corollary  of  the  unrighteousness  of  whatever 
is  not.  .  .  .  We  economists  must,  then,  come  to  recognize 
that  we  have  not  rightly  analyzed  the  notion  of  capital 
and  have  wrongly  interpreted  the  question-begging  term 
productive  in  economic  affairs.  We  have  assumed  that 
private  gain  and  social  welfare  are  approximately  inter- 
changeable concepts.  As  we  have  failed  to  see  that  some 
profits  and  some  wages  are  mere  predation,  so  we  have 
failed  to  recognize  that  some  capital  is  as  iniquitous  and 
disastrous  for  social  welfare  as  other  of  the  capital  is  benef- 
icent."1 When  we  find  an  economist  thus  frankly  and 
freely  criticizing  the  traditional  views  of  his  science  and 
pointing  out  the  difficulties  which  analysis  has  to  face,  it 
must  not  be  thought  strange  that  many  phases  of  past 
socialist  theory  have  turned  out  to  be  inadequate  or  even 
completely  erroneous.  The  socialist  can  surely  meet  a 
writer  of  the  frankness  of  Davenport  at  least  half-way. 
One  more  quotation  will,  I  think,  suffice  to  make  my 
point,  the  tentative  character  of  theory  and  the  necessity 
of  taking  toward  it  an  evolutionary  attitude.  "Three 
defects  appear,  then,"  writes  Hobson,2  "to  disqualify 
current  economic  science  for  the  work  of  human  valuation. 
First,  an  exaggerated  stress  upon  production,  reflected 
in  the  terminology  and  method  of  the  science,  with  a 
corresponding  neglect  of  consumption.  Secondly,  a 

1  "The  Economics  of  Enterprise,"  p.  528. 

2  "Work  and  Wealth/'  p.  9. 


SOCIALISM  IN  THE  MAKING  27 

standard  of  values  which  has  no  consistent  relation  to 
human  welfare.  Thirdly,  a  mechanical  conception  of 
the  economic  system,  due  to  the  treatment  of  every  human 
action  as  a  means  to  the  production  of  non-humanly  valued 
wealth"  There  is  more  than  a  touch  of  the  influence  of 
the  purpose  of  socialism  in  this  quotation. 

These  criticisms  of  their  own  science  by  leading  econ- 
omists reveal  a  growing  consciousness  of  the  complexity  of 
social  relations  and  the  importance  of  values.  One  signif- 
icant thing  we  are  assuredly  able  to  deduce  from  these  con- 
fessions, viz.,  that  political  economy  is  a  special  science 
and  that  deductions  or  maxims  should  not  be  drawn  from 
it  alone.  There  is  always  something  abstract  and  partial 
in  the  assumptions  and  facts  of  a  special  science — its  values 
must  be  constantly  re-valued — and,  added  to  this,  there  is 
its  necessary  immaturity.  Now  these  conclusions,  as  we 
shall  presently  see,  apply  to  socialism. 

There  are  at  least  three  stages  in  the  development  of 
modern  socialism  and  these  stages  are  marked  by  differing 
conceptions  of  the  social  state  to  be  achieved  and  of  the 
methods  best  suited  to  bring  this  more  ideal  condition 
about.  Roughly  speaking,  the  first  period  lasted  until  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  is  usually  called  the 
Utopian  period,  a  term  adopted  from  the  famous  romance 
of  Sir  Thomas  More,  that  good  knight  and  strange  blend 
of  radicalism  and  conservatism.  We  may  regard  the 
second  period  as  commencing  with  the  Communist  Man- 
ifesto which  was  written  by  Marx  and  Engels  in  November 
of  the  year  1847.  It  was  in  large  measure  from  the  pecul- 
iar characteristics  of  this  period  that  political  socialism 
took  its  rise.  This  kind  of  socialism  is  called  by  its  ad- 
mirers scientific,  by  its  critics,  orthodox  socialism.  We 
shall  have  occasion  to  point  out  both  its  strength  and  its 


28  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

*2  > 

weakness.  The  third  period  represents  the  modification 
of  the  social  philosophy  of  Marx  and  his  contemporaries 
by  influences  due  to  changing  political  and  social  condi- 
tions and  the  more  adequate  knowledge  of  society  con- 
sequent upon  the  growth  of  the  social  sciences.  Thus 
the  socialist  movement  is  consciously  and  unconsciously 
undergoing  an  alteration  of  perspective  and  of  doctrine  as 
the  result  of  a  better  knowledge  of  the  tendencies  actually 
at  work  in  the  world  at  large.  This  third  period  is,  prop- 
erly speaking,  a  time  of  transition;  socialism  is  losing  its  or- 
thodoxies while  adhering  to  its  purpose  and  general  plan. 
Such  is  in  summary  the  history  of  socialism.  Let  us  now 
look  at  this  development  a  little  more  closely. 

Utopian  socialism  was  very  fertile  in  ideas  and,  with  all 
its  faults,  contributed  far  more  to  the  positive  content  of 
socialism  than  the  disciples  of  Marx  are  usually  willing  to 
admit.  Fourier,  for  instance,  for  all  his  oddities  caught 
the  spirit  of  socialism  in  a  remarkable  degree — its  emphasis 
on  cooperation  and  human  welfare,  its  love  of  freedom,  its 
sense  of  justice,  its  faith  in  humanity,  its  dislike  of  caste. 
He  was  one  of  the  first  to  point  out  the  waste  in  commer- 
cial competition,  which  does  not  have  excellence  but  merely 
profit  for  its  goal,  and  to  challenge  the  smug  optimism  of 
the  current  economics.  For  him,  socialism  had  larger  as- 
pects than  the  economic  although  he  recognized  the  im- 
portance of  this  basic  phase  of  life.  Saint  Simon,  the  other 
French  prophet  of  the  regeneration  of  society,  laid  his 
stress  upon  the  possibilities  of  a  kind  of  scientific  organiza- 
tion of  society.  The  fault  with  society  was  its  lack  of  order 
and  method,  the  determination  of  affairs  by  chance  and 
custom;  the  race  had  just  muddled  along.  This  criticism 
of  things  as  they  are,  this  yearning  for  a  freer,  more  in- 
telligent, more  sanely  progressive  world  was  urgently 


SOCIALISM  IN  THE  MAKING  29 

alive  in  these  thinkers.  The  impulse  of  creation  was 
abroad  at  the  time  sketching  in  hasty  strokes  a  more  ra- 
tional society,  seeking  to  build  it  a  little  nearer  to  the 
heart's  desire. 

But  these  early  socialists  had  little  appreciation  of  the 
obstacles  which  confronted  them.  They  thought  out  their 
schemes  of  a  better  state  with  a  patience  and  a  thorough- 
ness which  command  our  admiration,  but  they  had  little 
idea  of  how  social  changes  are  actually  brought  about. 
In  this  regard,  they  were  the  children  of  their  age.  We, 
to-day,  consent  to  modify  our  basic  institutions  only 
gradually;  every  change  is  looked  upon  as  an  experiment 
whose  result  cannot  be  predicted  and  we  would  shrink 
back  from  a  reckless  unsettling  of  the  whole  foundation  of 
society  as  likely  to  lead  to  disaster. 

Yet,  while  these  early  socialists  believed  in  their  ability 
to  reconstruct  society  in  detail  and  did  not  realize,  as  we 
do  to-day,  the  complexity  of  social  relations  and  the  small 
part  pure  reason  can  play  in  their  better  adjustment  to 
human  welfare,  they  were  far  from  advocating  violence. 
Rationalists  they  were,  but  rationalists  decidedly  dis- 
illusioned with  revolutionary  methods.  In  the  early 
decades  of  the  nineteenth  century,  men  were  far  less  hope- 
ful of  the  achievements  to  be  brought  about  by  revolution 
than  their  fathers  had  been.  The  great  French  Revolution 
for  all  its  sound  and  fury  seemed  to  many  thinking  men  to 
have  made  little  improvement  in  the  general  conditions  of 
life..  While  they  were  unjust  here,  it  is  undoubtedly  the 
case  that  the  improvements  made  were  not  commensurate 
with  the  means.  Reaction  had  so  easily  followed  upon 
the  heels  of  political  changes  and,  to  make  matters  worse, 
the  industrial  revolution  had  intervened  to  make  these  of 
far  less  importance  than  they  had  been  thought.  The 


30  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

world  had  gone  mad  over  the  English  parliamentary  sys- 
tem, as  a  kind  of  beautiful  toy,  without  asking  what  it  was 
good  for.  In  the  meantime,  the  number  of  landless  work- 
men living  on  starvation  wages  and  laboring  excessively 
long  hours  had  increased.  For  those  who  realized  this 
fact,  the  watchwords  of  the  previous  century  with  their 
exaltation  of  merely  political  and  legal  liberty  were  be- 
ginning to  sound  stale. 

Thus  the  socialists  were  this  early  probing  deeper  than 
others  of  their  contemporaries.  But  they  were  naive  both 
in  regard  to  method  and  end  to  be  aimed  at.  We  who 
have  had  a  hundred  years'  experience  with  political  de- 
mocracy know  how  slow  social  change  is  and  how  many 
disappointments  the  enthusiast  must  undergo  who  ro- 
mantically and  sentimentally  idealizes  the  mass  of  men 
and  their  capacity  to  look  ahead.  We  are  aware  that 
society  is  not  a  mechanism  to  be  remodelled  after  some 
clever  plan  but  a  slowly  developing  organism  not  any  too 
quick  to  learn  by  experience. 

As  rationalists,  the  Utopians  thoroughly  believed  in 
persuasion.  They  thought  that  truth  was  omnipotent 
and  only  needed  a  fair  hearing  to  carry  all  before  it.  If 
only  the  plans  for  a  happier  and  healthier  community, 
thought  they,  could  be  brought  clearly  before  the  influen- 
tial members  of  society,  they  would  be  joyfully  accepted, 
put  into  force  and  immediately  a  new  era  for  humanity 
would  dawn.  Poor,  old,  lovable  Fourier  waited  patiently 
to  the  last  for  the  millionaire  who  would  give  the  funds 
with  which  to  start  the  first  commune.  Once  this  model 
commune  was  put  into  operation,  it  would,  he  believed, 
demonstrate  beyond  possibility  of  cavil  the  value  of  the 
new  social  organization.  Other  communes  would  there- 
upon spring  up  and  the  march  to  the  conquest  of  the 


SOCIALISM  IN  THE  MAKING  31 

present  inefficient  and  unjust  order  would  continue  by 
reason  of  the  intrinsic  worth  of  the  new  order.  Thus  ger- 
suasion  and  example  united  were  to  win  the  day  for  social- 
ism. 

While  these  early  advocates  of  socialism  differed  among 
themselves  on  many  points,  they  had  essentially  the  same 
general  outlook  on  the  world.  We  have  called  them  ra- 
tionalists because  they  wished  to  reconstruct  the  world  by 
the  light  of  an  abstract  reason.  They  were  also  optimists 
and  idealists  of  the  most  pronounced  type.  "  All  thinkers," 
writes  Sombart,1  "who,  up  to  the  eighteen-forties,  were 
socialistically  inclined  based  their  views  on  the  metaphys- 
ical belief  in  the  goodness  of  God  (or  of  Nature).  God  is 
good,  and  since  He  made  the  world,  the  world  also  is  good. 
Any  other  conclusion  would  be  absurd.  It  would  be 
absurd,  for  instance,  to  imagine  that  a  beneficent  God 
should  have  created  a  world  which  was  not  filled  with 
goodness  and  harmony.  Man  is  good  by  nature;  he  is  a 
social  animal;  he  can  develop  to  the  highest  grades  of  per- 
fection. That  is  the  gospel  of  the  Utopists."  But  if  the 
world  is  of  this  character,  why  are  things  so  bad?  Why  is 
there  so  much  suffering  and  disorder?  The  answer  of  the 
Utopian  is  like  the  answer  of  Rousseau:  Men  are  the  vic- 
tims of  artificial  conditions,  of  false  institutions.  Remove 
these  arid  restore  the  natural  state  of  man's  existence 
"based  on  the  unerring  and  unchanging  laws  of  Nature" 
and  all  will  be  well.  It  is  the  function  of  reason  to  dis- 
cover these  laws  and  establish  natural  relationships  among 
men. 

What  must  be  our  own  attitude  toward  these  teachings? 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  first  phase  of  socialism 
was  tinged  with  what — for  lack  of  a  better  name — we  may 
1  "Socialism  and  the  Socialist  Movement,"  p.  31. 


32  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

call  Rousseauism;  and  there  are  many  writers  who  claim 
that  even  contemporary  socialists  have  not  altogether  rid 
themselves  of  this  element.  Now  by  Rousseauism  we 
mean  a  lack  of  historical  perspective,  a  tendency  to  idealize 
Nature,  a  proneness  to  think  in  terms  of  abstractions,  a 
belief  in  natural  or  genuine  institutions  as  against  artificial 
institutions,  a  readiness  to  become  unduly  sentimental. 
The  heart  of  the  Rousseauist  is  in  the  right  place  but  he 
does  not  understand  human  nature  and  the  natural  char- 
acter of  all  institutions.  He  does  not  see  that  these  cus- 
toms are  founded  upon  human  life  as  it  has  been  in  the 
past  and  that  persuasion  alone  will  not  be  sufficient  to 
make  men  relinquish  them  and  adopt  totally  new  ones. 
Yet  in  spite  of  the  simplicity  of  their  social  psychology, 
these  Utopians  had  keen  minds  and  laid  their  fingers  upon 
many  weaknesses  in  the  society  of  their  day.  They  started 
men  to  think  critically  about  abuses  which  had  only  use- 
and-wont  as  their  justification.  They  brought  reason  to 
bear  upon  society  and,  if  they  were  mistaken  in  their 
assumption  that  it  would  be  easy  to  persuade  men  to 
build  anew  from  top  to  bottom,  they  at  least  helped  to 
awaken  a  new  spirit  of  dissatisfaction. 

Our  conclusion  is  that  Utopian  socialism  began  the  con- 
scious movement  toward  a  better  organization  of  industrial 
life  just  as  the  teachings  of  Locke  and  Rousseau  inaugu- 
rated the  era  of  political  democracy.  There  was,  however, 
something  premature  and  artificial  about  their  suggestions. 
Either  society  was  not  morally  developed  enough  to  adopt 
their  plans  and  put  them  into  practice  or  else  these  plans 
were  not  in  line  with  the  actual  growth  of  society.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  these  plans  represented  too  much  of  a  break 
with  the  past  and  did  not  have  in  them  the  power  to  absorb 
and  employ  the  untamed  energies  of  the  world  as  it  was. 


SOCIALISM  IN  THE  MAKING  33 

They  aimed  to  do  too  much  all  at  once.  But  this  fact 
should  not  lessen  our  estimation  of  the  significance  of  such 
men  as  Owen,  Fourier,  Saint  Simon  and  Cabet.  They 
lived  and  thought  nobly  within  the  conditions  of  their 
time  and  planted  the  seeds  of  a  movement  which  has 
since  taken  its  acknowledged  place  as  one  of  the  most 
significant  of  the  twentieth  century.  They  helped  to 
make  democracy  critical  of  industrial  conditions  and 
alert  for  improvements. 

Toward  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  a  marked 
change  in  outlook  and  sentiment  made  itself  felt.  New 
forces  were  stirring  on  every  hand.  The  old  balance  of 
power  was  giving  way.  The  city  was  replacing  the  coun- 
try; the  proletariat  was  awaking  to  a  sense  of  its  thrall- 
dom;  education  was  spreading  among  the  masses;  the 
ideals  of  political  democracy  were  giving  rise  to  new  sets 
of  values.  All  this  led  to  the  growth  of  reflection  upon 
social  affairs  and  a  resultant  knowledge  of  the  way  in 
which  changes  are  effected  in  society.  The  consequence 
was  a  reaction  against  the  light-hearted  optimism  and 
rationalism  of  the  previous  century  and  growth  of  a  semi- 
pessimistic  realism.  The  idea  of  social  classes  came  to  the 
fore.  In  this  competitive  era,  man  was  looked  upon  as 
selfish  rather  than  unselfish  and  as  banding  together  in 
accordance  with  economic  interests.  This  changed  out- 
look immediately  affected  socialism  and  caused  it  to  pass 
into  a  second  stage.  This  second  period  is  associated  with 
the  name  of  Karl  Marx.  While  he  was  not  the  sole  creator 
of  this  new  phase  of  socialism,  he  was  its  most  gifted 
interpreter. 

Let  us  glance  at  some  of  the  distinctive  features  of 
Marxian  socialism.  We  shall  see  at  once  that  the  change 
in  spirit  and  outlook  is  very  marked. 


84  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

In  the  first  place,  Marx  did  not  pretend  to  lay  down  a 
definite  picture  of  the  future  organization  of  society. 
He  did  not  work  out  the  details  of  a  New  Republic  or  of 
a  Phalanstery.  His  great  work,  often  called  the  Socialist 
Bible,  was  an  analysis  of  capitalism.  He  sought  to  show 
that  the  breakdown  of  capitalism  was  inevitable,  that  it 
was  digging  its  own  grave,  and  that  the  advent  of  socialism 
was  assured.  "  Marxian  socialism,  or  '  scientific '  socialism, 
as  Marx  called  it,"  writes  Simkhovitch,1  "differed  fun- 
damentally from  the  various  types  of  socialism  which 
preceded  it.  Marx  ridiculed  the  invention  of  an  ideal  social 
organization,  a  perfect  state.  The  fundamental  proposi- 
tion upon  which  Marx's  socialism  rested  was  his  economic 
interpretation  of  history.  This  conception  implied  that  the 
political  and  legal  organization  of  society  is  absolutely 
dependent  upon  its  economic  structure,  that  our  future 
depends  entirely  upon  existing  economic  tendencies,  that 
no  social  revolution  could  socialize  scattered  and  decen- 
tralized industry,  nor  could  legions  of  small  property- 
owners  be  expropriated."  Hence  Marx  broke  sharply  with 
early  socialism.  He  had  no  faith  in  isolated  experiments 
and  did  not  believe  over  much  in  the  power  of  persuasion. 
Since  the  basic  assumptions  of  his  outlook  were  so  different 
from  those  of  the  eighteenth  century,  it  was  inevitable  that 
he  should  advocate  different  tactics.  He  tried  to  see 
society  as  it  actually  is  and  believed  that  he  discerned 
something  of  the  nature  of  a  class-war,  a  continuous 
struggle  between  two  classes  whose  interests  were  directly 
opposed.  Hegelian  that  he  was,  he  believed  that  he  could 
work  out  the  inner  logic  of  the  process  and  predict  its 
various  stages.  But  he  was  by  nature  and  training  an 
agitator  as  well  as  a  speculative  thinker  and  was  not  sat- 
1  "  Marxism  Versus  Socialism,"  Introduction,  p.  6. 


SOCIALISM  IN  THE  MAKING  35 

isfied  simply  to  predict.  Through  his  activities  and  those 
of  his  friends,  Engels,  Liebknecht  and  others,  the  socialist 
movement  became  a  proletarian  movement,  an  organiza- 
tion of  the  working-people  connected  with  large  industries. 
It  has  thus  brought  these  people  consciously  into  touch 
with  the  ideals  of  a  democracy  of  a  radical  kind. 

While  Marx  was,  on  the  whole,  a  realist  of  a  pretty  con- 
crete sort,  he  was  yet  tinged  with  a  revolutionary  ardor. 
His  imagination  was  possessed  by  the  series  of  political 
revolutions  which  had  convulsed  France  during  the  pre- 
vious half -century  and  he  tended  to  look  upon  violent  up- 
risings as  the  necessary  means  by  which  power  passed 
from  one  class  to  another.  The  middle  class  had  in  this 
way  shaken  off  the  blighting  control  of  the  Feudal  Aristoc- 
racy and  abolished  all  those  privileges  which  hindered  its 
own  development  and  march  to  power.  Thus  Marx  be- 
lieved that  a  sort  of  veiled  war  is  always  raging  in  the  heart 
of  society  and  that  it  comes  to  a  crisis  now  and  then  in 
open  revolts  with  resultant  shifts  of  power  and  institutional 
changes.  Such  was  Marx's  reading  of  history  in  terms  of 
class  struggles.  Let  us  see  how  he  applied  this  interpreta- 
tion of  history  to  socialism. 

The  middle  class,  or  bourgeoisie,  was  slowly  but  surely 
gaining  the  upper  hand  and  replacing  absolute  monarchies 
and  feudalism  by  parliaments  and  by  a  democratic  suf- 
frage. The  consequence  was  a  political  and  economic  re- 
organization of  society  called  democracy  and  capitalism  re- 
spectively. These  changes  were  creating  a  new,  or  fourth, 
class,  the  proletariat,  long  a  relatively  unimportant  sat- 
ellite of  the  middle  class  but  now  attaining  an  unconscious 
solidarity  and  a  tremendous  potential  power.  Before 
middle-class  democracy  and  capitalism  were  completely 
established,  Marx  thought,  the  proletariat  would  sur- 


36  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

prise  their  nominal  leaders  by  rebelling  and  securing  the 
fruits  of  the  revolution  for  themselves.  "Thus  we  see," 
writes  Jaures,  "that  the  proletarian  revolution  is  to  be 
grafted  on  to  a  victorious  bourgeois  revolution.  Marx's 
mind,  delicately  ironical  and  even  sarcastic  in  tone,  amused 
itself  with  these  tricks  of  thought."  Class  dismounts 
class  from  the  saddle  until  the  last  class  is  reached,  those 
who  bear  the  chief  burden  of  society.  With  the  sudden 
ascendency  of  this  basic  class,  the  old  privileges  cease  and 
class-government  ends.  By  a  coup  de  surprise,  a  relatively 
weak  element  of  the  population  takes  advantage  of  a 
critical  situation  to  overthrow  the  unjust  economic  organ- 
ization of  the  past.  In  this  way,  society  will  finally  be  rid 
of  the  canker  of  exploitation  and  be  in  a  position  to  develop 
a  healthy  and  happy  life. 

What  must  we  say  of  this  revolutionary  theory  of  social 
change?  To  the  American  and  to  the  Englishman,  it 
sounds  too  romantic  and  theatrical.  England  has  a  capac- 
ity for  compromise  and  adjustment  which  prevents  the 
overt  occurrence  of  revolutions;  the  same  is  true  of  Amer- 
ica. For  all  his  long  residence  in  England,  it  is  doubtful 
that  Marx  understood  the  temper  and  method  of  its  people. 
His  eyes  were  fixed  upon  France  with  its  lack  of  training 
in  government  and  its  Latin  sense  of  the  dramatic.  An- 
other objection  must  be  raised  to  his  philosophy  of  history. 
However  it  may  have  been  in  the  past,  a  minority  to-day 
would  be  unable  to  grasp  the  reins  of  power  and  re-organize 
society  in  a  constructive  and  permanent  fashion.  Mere 
numbers  do  not  constitute  social  power  for  the  units  may 
be  ineffective  individually  and  incapable  of  constructive 
efforts;  moreover,  the  proletariat  in  the  Marxian  sense  of 
that  term  do  not  constitute  the  majority  of  any  modern 
state.  It  would  seem  to  follow  that  socialism  must  resign 


SOCIALISM  IN  THE  MAKING  37 

this  flirtation  with  the  idea  of  a  spectacular  revolution — 
it  is  somewhat  too  childish  and  superficial  to  gain  credence 
among  those  who  sense  the  complexity  of  society  and  the 
part  played  by  ideas,  customs  and  institutions.  Society 
cannot  go  faster  than  the  social  mind  and  the  social  mind 
cannot  be  taken  by  storm;  it  has  an  inertia  which  is  the 
despair  of  rationalists  and  revolutionaries  alike. 

At  the  same  time  that  we  reject  the  philosophy  of  history 
of  Marx  we  are  forced  to  abandon  much  of  his  economics. 
Socialism  will  not  come  in  a  political  democracy  as  the 
result  of  a  spectacular  revolution.  Society  is  too  plastic 
to  the  forces  of  public  opinion  for  this  to  occur.  We  must 
likewise  admit  that  the  belief,  encouraged  by  Marx,  that 
capitalistic  society  contains  within  itself  the  germs  of  its 
own  bankruptcy  has  failed  to  be  verified  by  the  facts.  If 
the  proletariat  waited  until  the  death-throes  of  capitalism 
began  for  their  emancipation,  they  would  be  forced  to  wait 
indefinitely.  Neither  a  sudden  economic  nor  a  sudden 
political  cataclysm  is  probable.  Both  industry  and  govern- 
ment have  a  far  broader  basis  to-day  than  ever  before  and 
consequently  have  a  stabler  equilibrium. 

But  while  many  of  the  theories  of  the  second  period  of 
socialism  are  no  longer  tenable  and  must  be  rejected,  the 
situation  is  quite  different  with  the  tendencies  set  on  foot 
at  this  time.  We  saw  that  Utopian  socialists  appealed  to 
society  as  a  whole  and  had  faith  in  a  vague  educative 
process.  Society,  they  thought,  would  follow  the  guidance 
of  reason  and  this  reason  was  a  sort  of  impersonal  reason 
having  little  to  do  with  the  grim  forces  which  actually  con- 
trol human  relations.  It  was  a  reason  of  a  transcendental 
type  which  ignored  selfishness  and  custom  and  inertia  and 
privilege.  Now  the  aim  dominating  the  second  phase  of 
socialism  was  the  elevation  of  the  mass  of  the  working- 


38  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

people.  Leaving  in  the  background,  the  vision  of  a  benefi- 
cent future  for  all,  these  reformers  fixed  their  attention 
upon  the  actual  situation  of  the  laboring  classes.  Socialism 
meant  for  them  the  emancipation  of  the  proletariat  by  the 
proletariat.  All  their  theories  revolved  around  this  cen- 
tral motive. 

False  as  many  of  the  prophecies  in  regard  to  the  future 
of  the  working-classes  were,  the  emphasis  laid  on  the  neces- 
sity of  their  own  initiative  was  eternally  right.  This  de- 
mand that  the  masses  awake  and  help  to  control  their 
destiny  is  in  line  with  the  best  traditions  of  liberalism  and 
democracy.  Instead  of  a  passive  mass  controlled  from 
above,  Marx  and  his  followers  hoped  to  see  the  birth  of  a 
self-conscious  and  independent-minded  group  aware  of 
its  condition  and  of  the  essential  injustice  of  it.  Out  of 
the  insistent  demands  of  this  hitherto  inarticulate  part  of 
society,  a  shifting  of  the  center  of  gravity  of  public  opin- 
ion would  take  place  which  would  be  reflected  in  all  phases 
of  social  life.  And  this  shifting  of  values  is  what  is  actually 
occurring.  Socialism  has  become  a  movement  rather  than 
a  vision  of  an  ideal  state.  It  is  a  ferment  within  society 
forcing  society  to  progress  toward  a  fuller  democracy. 

Thus  the  second  stage  of  socialism  was  not  so  much 
scientific  as  realistic.  It  brought  socialism  down  from  the 
clouds  to  the  earth  and  led  to  its  entrance  as  a  militant 
factor  in  the  actual  alignment  of  tendencies  and  weighted 
interests  which  control  legislation.  We  should  always 
remember  that  theories  may  be  in  large  measure  wrong 
and  yet  have  a  vital  correctness  in  so  far  as  they  call  atten- 
tion to  conditions  which  should  not  be  permitted  and 
nourish  movements  which  help  to  bring  about  the  mod- 
ification of  those  socially-hurtful  conditions.  Theories 
may  possess  truth  by  their  very  orientation  and  by  the 


SOCIALISM  IN  THE  MAKING  39 

purpose  which  they  subserve  even  though  the  overt  el- 
ements in  them  must  ultimately  be  given  up  and  replaced 
by  other  distinctions  and  formulations  which  are  more 
exact  while  yet  retaining  the  same  general  purpose  and 
guiding  the  same  movement  which  has  now  grown  more 
adult.  Such,  I  believe,  is  the  nature  of  the  truth  of  the 
theories  of  the  second  stage  of  socialism,  and  it  is  for  this 
reason  that  I  sense  something  superficial  in  those  econ- 
omists and  publicists  who  remove  these  Marxian  theories 
from  their  social  and  historical  setting  and  attack  them 
as  wholly  significant  in  themselves  apart  from  the  social 
and  ethical  motives  which  gave  them  their  life. 

The  second  period  of  socialism  witnessed  the  propaganda 
of  the  word  among  masses  of  people  who  had  never  before 
thought  seriously  and  deeply  upon  social  and  political 
problems;  and,  if  democracy  rests  upon  the  ability  of 
nearly  all  people  to  respond  to  general  principles  which 
affect  them  and  to  offer  suggestions  as  to  their  needs  and 
particular  circumstances,  democracy  owes  a  debt  of 
gratitude  to  the  socialist  propaganda.  It  has  called  the 
masses  to  council.  If,  when  called,  they  speak  out  boldly 
their  criticism  of  our  present-day  social  and  economic 
organization,  we  should  not  be  surprised.  It  would  indeed 
be  strange  if  these  men  who  have  borne  burdens  which  we 
would  not  bear  without  protest  did  not  ask  the  more  favor- 
ably placed  classes  searching  questions.  It  may  well  be 
that  the  answers  they  themselves  give  are  crude  and  in- 
adequate; then  it  is  our  place  to  offer  more  adequate  an- 
swers which  are  not  mere  evasions.  So  long  as  we  do  not 
do  this,  their  hypotheses  are  the  only  ones  in  the  field  and 
must  be  tentatively  accepted  until  more  satisfactory  ones 
are  forthcoming.  The  important  point  to  recognize  is, 
however,  the  fact  that  democracy  puts  its  trust  in  the 


40  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

interplay  of  social  forces  and  encourages  all  parts  of  the 
social  organism  to  become  articulate  hoping  that  in  this 
fashion  the  fullest  justice  can  be  done.  How  much  better 
is  such  a  program,  which  makes  those  who  have  divergent 
experiences  speak  for  themselves,  than  that,  inherent  in 
restrictive  policies,  which  trusts  to  a  paternalistic  interest 
in  the  condition  of  the  lower  classes!  So  long  as  different 
groups  have  different  interests,  that  is,  so  long  as  society 
is  imperfect,  one  group  cannot  be  trusted  to  represent 
others.  Our  ideal  should  be  harmony  but  not  a  harmony 
purchased  at  the  expense  of  variety;  a  harmony  which 
grows  out  of  problems  is  far  better  than  a  harmony  which 
ignores  them. 

The  third  period  into  which  socialism  is  now  entering 
represents  a  time  of  transition  in  which  the  actual  move- 
ment of  events  and  the  growth  of  new  ideas  have  led  to  a 
reconsideration  of  the  rather  immature  philosophy  of  the 
previous  era.  Naturally  enough,  the  first  move  was  to  pour 
new  wine  into  the  old  bottles,  that  is,  to  broaden  out  and 
to  qualify  the  traditional  theories.  Many  of  the  rather 
hasty  theories  of  Marx  were  re-interpreted  and  robbed 
of  their  definiteness.  This  process  was  made  easier  by 
the  vagueness  which  characterized  the  formulation  of 
many  of  these  doctrines.  In  his  later  years,  Marx  intro- 
duced qualifying  phrases  and  where  he  had  not  done 
this,  his  friend,  Engels,  who  lived  on  into  the  nineties 
did  so.  It  was  not  difficult  to  carry  this  process  further 
and  so  formulate  such  theories  as  the  increasing  misery 
of  the  working-classes,  the  labor  theory  of  value,  the  mate- 
rialistic interpretation  of  history,  the  class-struggle,  the 
over-production  theory  of  crises,  and  the  inherent  tendency 
of  capitalism  to  bankruptcy  as  to  rob  them  of  their  old 
import.  Marx  was  a  system-maker,  like  Hegel  and  Fichte, 


SOCIALISM  IN  THE  MAKING  41 

and  did  not  realize,  as  we  do  to-day,  the  danger  of  over- 
systematization  in  a  changing  field.  Just  because  of  this, 
Marxian  socialism  is  exposed  to  the  charge  of  continually 
making  prophecies  which  fail  to  come  true. 

It  is  often  said  that  one  of  the  strongest  points  of  Marx- 
ian socialism  was  its  determinism.  The  break-down  of 
capitalism  was  considered  inevitable  and  so  was  the 
triumph  of  the  proletariat.  This  faith  gave  a  grim  opti- 
mism to  the  believer  that  nothing  could  shake.  But  the 
inevitable  criticism  of  the  system  weakened  the  element  of 
necessity  and  made  the  foundation  of  society  less  mechan- 
ically economic.  It  was  more  and  more  realized  that 
human  purposes  and  ideals  are  of  prime  importance  as 
driving  motives  leading  to  social  changes.  Dominated  as 
he  was  by  the  philosophy  and  science  of  the  middle  of  last 
century,  Marx  was  unable  to  conceive  society  except  as  a 
process  moving  forward  en  masse  and  according  to 
the  dialectic  method  of  thesis,  antithesis  and  synthesis. 
It  matters  little  that  he  tried  to  stand  German  idealism 
on  its  head,  as  Feuerbach  had  done,  and  obtain  a  kind  of 
materialistic  realism;  the  impersonalism  and  mechanical 
determinism  of  the  view  still  remained. 

Now  this  semi-mechanical  and  almost  wholly  deter- 
ministic outlook  has  been  outgrown  by  social  philosophy 
and  it  is  the  half-conscious  recognition  of  this  fact  that 
motivated  the  movement  towards  revision.  While  the 
older  men,  naturally  enough,  desire  to  make  as  few  changes 
as  possible  in  the  inherited  system,  others  who  are  younger 
and  therefore  more  plastic  and  more  in  touch  with  the 
time  are  anxious  to  break  pretty  definitely  with  the  theories 
of  the  previous  century.  That  which  is  false  or  inadequate 
is,  they  believe,  more  of  a  hindrance  than  a  help. 

The  Marxian  phase  of  socialism  brought  it  into  touch 


42  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

with  political  democracy  and  worked  on  the  true  principle 
that  the  people  must  help  to  emancipate  themselves. 
We  should  never  forget  that  those  who  are  oppressed  have 
themselves  partly  to  blame.  In  this  realistic  and  dem- 
ocratic attitude  rather  than  in  its  economic  theories  lies 
the  permanent  contribution  which  Marxianism  made. 
Perhaps  we  should  add  to  this  the  challenge  which  it 
offered  to  the  middle-class  tendencies  in  economics.  It 
helped  to  give  a  voice  to  the  masses  and  drive  home  to  the 
thinker  their  point  of  view  in  such  a  way  that  it  could  not 
be  ignored.  If  a  group  of  theories  does  this,  it  is  thoroughly 
justified  from  the  historical  standpoint.  Political  economy 
is  always  in  danger  of  bowing  to  the  business  man's  out- 
look just  as  American  philosophy  so  easily  gives  way  to 
a  genteel  tradition. 

But  political  socialism  must  immerse  itself  in  the  living 
stream  of  modern  social  democracy;  it  must  acquire 
patience  and  ingenuity  and  be  content  to  approach  its 
goal  by  slow  degrees.  It  must  take  to  heart  the  sobering 
lessons  that  political  experience  has  been  teaching  even 
while  never  losing  faith  in  the  ultimate  outcome.  Such 
is  true  realism. 

Now  a  process  of  experiment  and  growth  takes  time, 
for  obvious  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  because  a  certain 
smooth  working  of  institutions  must  be  attained  before 
conclusions  can  be  drawn;  in  the  second  place,  because 
new  habits  and  customs  must  be  developed  in  the  na- 
tion at  large;  in  the  third  place,  because  a  more  social 
morality  must  replace  the  individual  morality  of  the  past; 
in  the  fourth  place,  because  certain  changes  must  precede 
others  which  presuppose  them.  The  economic  organiza- 
tion cannot  be  lightly  separated  from  the  whole  social 
organization  with  its  standards  and  methods  and  habits. 


SOCIALISM  IN  THE  MAKING  43 

For  these  reasons,  the  advance  towards  socializing  in- 
dustry will  be  gradual  and  experimental  and  cannot  out- 
run political  capacity  and  integrity.  The  public  mind  is 
the  ultimate  source  of  change  and  psychological  factors 
enter  into  social  adjustment  to  a  remarkable  degree. 
So  strikingly  is  this  the  case  that  many  writers  maintain 
the  thesis  that  the  chief  obstacle  to  a  systematic  re- 
organization of  industry  is  mental  rather  than  technical. 
Such  thinkers  are  in  line  with  modern  economics  and 
sociology  which  are  awakening  to  the  fact  that  the  indus- 
trial system  is  a  psychical  creation  and  only  uses  the  phys- 
ical world  as  a  tool. 

The  practical  importance  of  the  psychological  factor  can 
be  illustrated  in  this  way.  Those  who  profit  from  present 
conditions  usually  honestly  believe  that  these  conditions 
are  necessary  and  cannot  be  improved  upon.  They  do  so 
because  they  are  conventional  and  have  also  the  will  to 
believe  and  the  will  not  to  investigate  other  possibilities. 
On  the  other  hand,  those  who  bear  the  burden  have  seldom 
the  capacity  to  imagine  definite  remedies.  These  psycho- 
logical characteristics  account  for  what  I  have  called  the 
social  inertia,  the  inability  to  acquire  momentum  apart 
from  stimuli  of  a  continuously  acting  and  irrepressible 
sort  such  as  a  recognized  conflict  between  the  interests 
of  social  groups  or  a  new  vision  of  justice  which  has  taken 
possession  of  those  unselfish  minds  who  form  the  ethical 
leaven  of  society.  But  I  have  in  mind  not  only  this  re- 
tarding property  of  inertia  but  also  the  necessary  limita- 
tion of  the  field  of  attention.  Just  as  the  individual  mind 
must  concentrate  on  one  thing  at  a  time  if  it  is  going  to 
master  it,  so  the  social  mind  is  unable  to  cover  the  whole 
social  order  in  a  satisfactory  way  unless  it  takes  up  one 
feature  thoroughly  and  only  then  passes  to  another.  We 


44  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

may  call  this  the  principle  of  mental  economy  and  it  is  a 
principle  which  the  revolutionary  spirit  has  never  appraised 
at  its  true  worth. 

It  is  of  interest  to  note  that  even  political  socialism 
is  becoming  more  and  more  opportunistic  in  its  ideals  and 
methods.  This  unfortunate  but  much  employed  word  sig- 
nifies an  acquiescence  in  the  method  of  advance  laid  down 
by  those  features  of  the  social  mind  and  of  its  instruments, 
which  we  have  pointed  out  as  necessitating  an  experi- 
mental evolution  instead  of  a  fiery  revolution.  Only 
those  who  have  a  thin  and  shallow  notion  of  civilization 
can  persuade  themselves  that  a  complete  change  of 
economic  relations  and  ideals  could  be  carried  through 
at  a  stroke  without  rupture  of  the  delicate  social  tissues 
which  surround  industry  and  the  market  as  the  flesh 
models  itself  upon  the  skeleton.  For  opportunism  with 
its  slight  association  of  ethical  duplicity,  it  would  prob- 
ably be  better  to  substitute  a  term  denoting  a  positive 
method  founded  on  a  clear  comprehension  of  the  charac- 
teristics of  social  progress.  The  ideal  of  the  socialist  would 
then  become  that  of  slimulating  thjLSOcj&l  amjscience  to  a 
desire  for  better  things  and  of  guiding  it  to  a  modification 
of  institutions  to  bring  about  this  end.  Such  an  ideal  is  one 
with  the  function  of  statesmanship  and,  in  spite  of  the 
scorn  poured  upon  it  by  the  orthodox  Marxian,  demands 
more  knowledge  and  more  concrete  reasoning  than  the  con- 
coction of  an  abstract  outline,  summed  up  in  a  few  watch- 
words such  as  "an  industrial  democracy,"  which,  so  long 
as  it  remains  apart  from  actual  life  does  not  create  its 
own  criticism.  Socialism  must  possess  a  principle  or  it 
will  be  possessed  by  watchwords.  And  this  alternative 
is  a  vital  one  for  a  principle  guides  while  watchwords 
blind. 


SOCIALISM  IN  THE  MAKING  45 

But  an  experimental  readjustment  of  economic  rela- 
tions does  not  necessarily  proceed  at  a  snail's  pace;  much 
depends  upon  the  preparation  which  the  public  mind  has 
undergone.  And  it  is  in  this  field  that  political  agitation 
and  radical  scholarship  can  do  its  best  work.  The  customs 
and  ideals  which  underlie  the  present  order  must  be  under- 
mined and  their  inadequacy  convincingly  demonstrated. 
The  actual  working  of  our  institutions  must  be  shown  so 
that  he  who  runs  may  read  its  unfairness;  and  this  educa- 
tion of  the  public  mind  can  best  be  carried  on  by  means  of 
investigations  of  actual  conditions  and  by  means  of  clear 
and  simply-stated  analyses  of  the  real  meaning  of  such 
terms  as  liberty  and  justice  and  property.  The  majority 
of  the  effective  members  of  society  will  not  be  moved  by 
mere  denunciations  nor  by  what  has  the  appearance  of 
emotional  exaggeration.  I  fear  that  too  many  socialists 
have  moved  within  the  charmed  circle  of  traditional 
watchwords  and  unreal  classifications  and  have  therefore 
been  unable  to  make  their  message  a  meaningful  one  to 
those  who  felt — and  I  believe  truly — that  these  terms  did 
not  express  social  life  as  it  actually  is.  The  orthodox 
socialist  is  like  a  philosopher  who  creates  a  vocabulary  of 
his  own  and  is  surprised  that  others  do  not  understand 
his  message.  Nor  is  this  all.  He  is  too  often  like  a  scien- 
tist who  speaks  and  thinks  in  terms  of  the  ideas  of  the  last 
century.  He  who  clings  to  a  creed  to-day  by  that  very 
fact  proclaims  himself  lacking  in  the  true  spirit  of  modern 
science.  There  is,  I  fear,  too  much  emotion  and  too  little 
intellectual  humility  among  socialist  writers  and  this  men- 
tal bias  makes  socialism  sectarian.  There  are  signs,  how- 
ever, both  in  America  and  abroad  that  socialism  is  allying 
itself  with  the  modern  social  sciences,  content  to  learn 
from  them  the  results  of  economics  and  sociology  and 


46  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

psychology  while  holding  before  these  sciences  the  stim- 
ulating ideal  which  is  its  dearest  possession. 

Socialism  will  come  only  when  the  majority  of  citizens 
are  in  its  favor  and  such  a  majority  will  not  be  merely 
numerical  but  will  reveal  itself  in  the  attitude  of  public 
opinion.  When  public  opinion  swings  towards  socialism, 
socialism  will  come  as  fast  as  its  problems  permit.  Looking 
backward,  we  will  not  be  able  to  say,  "Lo!  it  commenced 
then,"  for  socialism  will  be  a  growth  rather  than  a  sudden 
creation.  The  plant  will  be  above  ground  before  we  are 
aware  and  we  will  be  startled  into  attention  only  when  it 
bursts  into  flower.  And  not  until  those  flowers  have  fallen 
and  the  fruit  has  come  will  we  be  quite  certain  what  kind 
of  plant  has  been  growing  thus  quietly  in  our  midst. 

The  principle  which  will  bring  socialism  to  pass  is  psy- 
chological and  not  mechanical.  The  psychologist  informs 
us  that  any  idea  which  becomes  dominant  in  the  mind  of 
an  individual  inevitably  passes  into  action.  The  idea  is 
never  a  mere  passive  image  but  has  a  body  of  tendencies 
straining  at  the  leash  and  crying  for  release.  Such  is  the 
ideo-motor  theory  which  is  playing  so  important  a  role 
to-day  in  the  science  of  the  mind.  Now  in  the  same  way, 
ideas  become  dominant  in  the  social  mind  and  control 
legislation.  The  question  for  the  socialist  is,  How  can  I 
make  my  ideas,  which  I  consider  so  valuable  for  the  weal 
of  society,  dominant?  How  can  I  capture  the  social  mind? 
I  have  tried  to  make  it  clear  that  he  can  do  this  in  two 
ways,  and  these  two  ways  correspond  to  the  work  of  two 
types  of  men,  the  agitator  and  the  scholar.  The  agitator 
enlarges  the  social  mind  by  awakening  classes  who  have 
been  too  docile;  he  tries  to  make  them  more  reflective  and 
more  critical  of  existent  conditions.  The  scholar  deepens 
the  social  mind  by  pointing  out  new  possibilities  and  by 


SOCIALISM  IN  THE  MAKING  47 

disclosing  remediable  wrongs.  His  influence  is  continuous 
and  creative  like  life  itself.  These  two  types  of  men  supple- 
ment one  another  and  it  is  a  great  pity  that  they  have  so 
often  been  at  odds.  The  mature  socialist  of  to-day  would 
like  to  see  them  work  together.  As  society  is  deepened 
and  broadened  by  their  activities,  old  institutions  will  be 
modified  and  new  ones  appear,  largely  by  means  of  judi- 
cious experiments. 


CHAPTER  III 
WHAT  SOCIALISM  HOPES  TO  ACCOMPLISH 

WE  have  seen  how  socialism  has  gradually  formed  out 
of  a  criticism  of  society  by  a  part  of  itself.  The  more  con- 
crete and  vital  this  criticism,  the  more  expressive  of  new 
forces  and  values,  the  less  Utopian  it  has  been.  All  move- 
ments have  a  similar  history.  There  comes,  first  of  all, 
the  dawning  sense  that  something  is  wrong.  The  natural 
impulse  is  to  advocate  extreme  measures,  to  employ  gen- 
eralities, to  meet  the  situation  in  some  spectacular  way. 
This  first  reaction  is  emotional  and  imaginative.  The 
intentions  are  good  but  there  is  not  as  yet  sufficient  knowl- 
edge of  the  actual  problem.  After  this  attitude  has  en- 
dured for  some  time,  there  arises  an  effort  to  define  the 
trouble,  to  see  what  exactly  is  wrong,  to  pass  from  general- 
ities and  emotional  solutions  to  an  accurate  analysis  of  the 
situation.  Very  little  is  actually  accomplished  until  this 
second  stage  ensues.  There  must  be  a  satisfactory  di- 
agnosis of  the  sickness  and  a  fair  body  of  knowledge  about 
the  organism  before  there  can  be  much  hope  of  a  good 
prescription.  Now  all  this  takes  time  and  time  is  very 
precious.  It  is,  therefore,  no  wonder  that  the  most  in- 
terested parties  get  impatient.  It  is  senseless  for  the  more 
fortunate  to  scold  them,  just  as  it  would  be  cruel  for  the 
healthy  to  chide  the  sick.  It  would  be  well  if  those  who 
have  a  good  seat  at  life's  table  would  remember  this  anal- 
ogy. 

Now  Utopian  socialism  represents  the  first  stage,  that  of 
a  sense  of  something  wrong  with  a  quick  appeal  to  general- 

48 


WHAT  SOCIALISM  HOPES  TO  ACCOMPLISH     49 

ities  and  vague  imaginings.  And  sometimes  these  imag- 
inings were  pretty  keen.  Everyone  should  read  some  of 
the  great  Utopias  just  to  lift  himself  for  a  moment  out  of 
the  rut  of  use-and-wont.  Marxian  socialism,  on  the  other 
hand,  represents  just  the  beginning  of  reflective  analysis. 
It  is  an  attempt  to  analyze  the  problem  and  to  bring 
knowledge  to  bear  upon  it.  But  a  difficult  problem  can- 
not be  diagnosed  and  prescribed  for  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye.  The  only  fault  that  I  am  inclined  to  find  with  the 
admirer  of  Marx  is  that  he  usually  credits  Marx  with  the 
accomplishment  of  the  impossible.  It  is  this  attitude 
which  has  induced  the  growth  of  those  endless  contro- 
versies between  Marxists  and  conservative  professors  of 
political  economy  which  are  as  absurd  in  their  motivation, 
as  they  are  stupid  in  their  content.  Perhaps  these  con- 
troversies aided  in  the  development  of  clearer  and  more 
adequate  ideas  but  their  time  is  past.  That  the  modern 
socialist  must  be  true  to  the  human  values  he  cham- 
pions goes  without  saying.  It  is  these  values  and  the 
principle  bound  up  with  them  which  make  him  a  so- 
cialist. He  should  not,  however,  fear  to  immerse  himself 
in  the  teachings  of  the  modern  social  sciences.  To  do 
otherwise  is  to  proclaim  himself  a  sectarian. 

Institutions  criticize  themselves  by  their  results,  just  as 
do  machines,  and  blindness  to  the  nature  of  these  results 
cannot  be  expected  of  rational  beings  whose  happiness  is 
bound  up  with  them.  So  long  as  the  conservative  cannot 
demonstrate  that  our  institutions  are  perfect,  he  must 
expect  this  constant  inspection  of  the  social  machinery. 
It  would  indeed  be  strange  were  it  otherwise:  the  wonder 
is  that,  with  such  obviously  faulty  results,  the  amount  of 
complaint  has  been  so  small.  The  reason  for  this  relative 
paucity  of  complaint  has,  of  course,  been  psychological. 


50  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

Very  few  individuals  are  able  to  separate  themselves 
from  the  institutions  of  their  day  sufficiently  to  step  back 
and  watch  their  working.  Such  an  act  requires  a  certain 
degree  of  abstraction,  a  consciousness  of  institutions  as 
human  instruments  which  can  be  changed.  Yet  this  ob- 
jective, shrewdly-critical  attitude  is  becoming  pretty 
general  with  the  increase  of  education  and  the  growth  of 
democratic  sentiment,  and  bids  fair  to  spread  to  the  masses 
who  have  until  now  been  in  society  but  not  genuinely  of 
it.  The  consequence  of  all  this  is  the  rise  of  a  critical, 
experimental  spirit  which  is  not  enamored  of  institutions 
but  studies  them  in  a  scientific  way  and  is  little  likely  to 
be  put  off  with  choleric  assertions  that  man  has  stumbled 
upon  the  best  of  possible  organizations.  Every  feature  of 
society  must,  from  now  on,  defend  itself  before  the  bar  of  a 
reason  steeped  in  facts  and  hopeful  of  improvement. 

We  have  tried  to  show  that  modern  socialism  is  the 
expression  of  just  such  a  concrete,  critical  and  experimen- 
tal reason  and  that,  as  time  has  elapsed,  it  has  become 
more  and  more  familiar  with  the  constituent  elements  of 
society,  with  the  faults  to  be  remedied,  with  the  tendencies 
working  beneath  the  surface,  with  promising  experiments. 
It  is  this  studious,  realistic,  experimental  attitude  toward 
society  which  I  regard  as  the  spirit  of  modern  socialism. 
Thus  far  we  have  concerned  ourselves  mainly  with  its 
principle,  its  sense  of  values  and  its  growth.  Let  us  now 
try  to  gain  some  idea  of  what  socialism  hopes  to  do. 

1.  Socialism  hopes  to  reduce  the  disorder  characteristic  of 
the  market  as  at  present  organized. 

The  disorder  of  the  market  finds  expression  in  the  num- 
ber of  business  failures  and  in  the  large  amount  of  unem- 
ployment. Where  there  is  not  something  approaching 
a  monopoly,  the  market  turns  out  to  be  a  struggle  for 


WHAT  SOCIALISM  HOPES  TO  ACCOMPLISH     51 

profit,  in  which  the  contestants  are  compelled  to  trust  to 
something  not  far  removed  from  luck.  Individual  enter- 
prise is  compelled  to  work  in  the  dark  in  the  attempt  to 
secure  and  maintain  a  sufficient  patronage.  The  result 
is,  that  an  appallingly  large  number  of  failures  are  regis- 
tered— especially  in  retail  business.  The  strain  and  worry 
and  financial  loss  due  to  this  irrational  state  of  the  market 
is  tremendous;  many  firms  balance  for  years  on  the  edge 
of  bankruptcy  until  some  loss  pushes  them  over.  I  know 
of  tradesmen  who  work  from  early  morning  until  night 
and  practically  never  take  a  holiday,  simply  in  order  to 
make  both  ends  meet.  The  human  cost  of  such  a  state  of 
affairs  is  far  greater  than  it  need  be,  and  the  main  motive 
is  to  escape  being  an  employee  under  conditions  which 
are  felt  to  be  still  less  bearable. 

The  labor-market  is  equally  chaotic.  There  is  constant 
unemployment  and  strikes  are  only  too  frequent.  The 
individual  has  no  sense  of  security,  and  has  to  fight  in 
order  to  receive  what  he  feels  to  be  human  treatment. 
Thus  the  industrial  system  acts  like  a  pump  without  an 
air-chamber  to  distribute  the  jar  and  the  pressure.  The 
necessary  adjustments  are  made  without  much  thought 
of  the  people  employed,  who  are  thrown  out  of  work  or 
given  reduced  wages  with  practically  no  notice.1  The 
market  is  a  huge  chain  of  causes  and  effects  without 
much  coordination;  it  is  not  a  machine  under  social  con- 
trol but  a  resultant  of  tendencies  and  forces  which  meet 

1  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  insecurity  of  tenure  holds  only  for  the 
unskilled  workman.  There  is  very  little  security  for  a  reporter  in  either 
United  States  or  England.  The  complaint  has  been  made  that  young 
men,  employed  perhaps  at  high  salaries,  have  their  "brains  sucked"  for  a 
year  or  two,  and  are  then  discharged  at  a  moment's  notice,  often  worn 
out.  For  this  aspect  of  commercialism  see  Scott-James,  "  The  Influence 
of  the  Press,"  p.  263. 


52  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

in  a  blind  way  much  as  the  molecules  of  gas  meet  in  a 
vessel. 

Now  the  socialist  maintains  that  a  different  spirit  and 
different  methods  can  be  introduced  to  eliminate  a  large 
share  of  this  disorder.  Cooperative  enterprises  in  England 
already  bid  fair  to  push  aside  this  undue  multiplication  of 
petty  stores  and  the  waste  of  capital  and  effort  involved 
in  them.  The  history  of  the  Rochdale  Experiment  is  ex- 
tremely illuminating  in  this  regard.  "Where  so  many 
other  Union  shops  had  failed  Rochdale  succeeded,  and  it 
has  steadily  grown  to  an  institution  with  some  14,000 
members,  doing  a  trade  of  £300,000,  owning  shops  and 
workshops,  a  library  and  reading-rooms,  making  large 
profits,  and  devoting  a  substantial  part  of  them  to  educa- 
tion and  to  charitable  purposes."  The  cooperative  scheme 
has  developed  to  such  an  extent  in  Great  Britain  that  there 
were  in  1906  more  than  1400  stores  with  nearly  two  and  a 
quarter  million  members,  over  £33,000,000  capital  and 
sales  exceeding  £63,000,000  in  the  year.  We  have  not 
been  successful  in  this  country  because  our  traditions  have 
unfitted  us,  in  the  past,  for  cooperative  enterprise.  But 
what  can  be  accomplished  is  made  apparent  by  a  study 
of  a  firm  like  Sears,  Roebuck  and  Company  "which  in- 
corporated approximately  9  millions  of  tangible  assets 
into  9  millions  of  preferred  stock  and  30  millions  of  common 
stock;  and  this  common  stock  is  now  selling  at  200  due  to 
the  avoidance  of  the  wastes  of  our  prevailing  system  of 
retail  merchandising." 

The  human  cost  of  strikes  and  unemployment  mounts 
to  a  frightful  total;  yet  a  large  measure  of  this  cost  could 
be  eliminated  by  increased  social  control  and  by  properly 
applied  public  work  which  could  act  as  a  kind  of  industrial 
reservoir.  The  brunt  of  the  ill-adaptation  caused  by  the 


WHAT  SOCIALISM  HOPES  TO  ACCOMPLISH     53 

disorder  of  the  market  falls  now  on  those  who  are  least 
able  to  bear  it.  It  would  probably  surprise  society  to  find 
out  how  easily  productive  work  such  as  reforestation, 
irrigation,  the  building  of  canals,  etc.,  could  be  employed 
by  the  state  to  control  this  incidence  of  unemployment. 
Moreover,  with  a  less  selfish  division  of  wealth,  the  ques- 
tion of  strikes  would  lose  much  of  its  dire  character.  But 
we  are  concerned  as  yet  with  the  discovery  of  social  prob- 
lems, which  can  be  grappled  with  if  society  but  try,  rather 
than  with  the  solution  of  them. 

There  are  many  other  features  of  the  market  as  actually 
organized  which  are  anti-social  in  their  effects.  A  quota- 
tion from  a  comparatively  conservative  sociologist  will 
bring  out  one  aspect  that  is  not  usually  considered,  that 
is,  the  control  of  the  direction  of  production  and  of  prices 
by  the  wealthy  minority.  "The  process  of  definite  pecu- 
niary valuation,  the  price-making  function,  is  based  upon 
'effective  demand*  or  the  offer  of  money  for  goods;  per- 
haps we  ought  to  say  for  consumer's  goods,  as  the  value  of 
producer's  goods  may  be  regarded  as  secondary.  It  is 
therefore  the  immediate  work  of  those  who  have  money 
to  spend.  Just  how  far  spending  is  concentrated  in  a  class 
I  cannot  pretend  to  say,  but  judging  from  current  esti- 
mates I  suppose  it  would  be  no  exaggeration  to  say  that 
one-half  of  the  purchasing  power  in  an  industrial  commu- 
nity is  exercised  by  one-fifth  of  the  families."1  The  neces- 
sities of  life  are  thus  often  subordinated  to  the  luxuries,  a 
point  made  recently  by  G.  B.  Shaw.  Again,  we  can  almost 
say  that  the  reward  given  to  an  individual  is  only  acciden- 
tally expressive  of  his  social  service.  The  reaction  of  the 
market  reflects  the  needs  and  desires  of  vast  bodies  of 
individuals  and  what  the  particular  entrepreneur  does 

1  C.  H.  Cooley.  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vol.  XVIII,  p.  551. 


54  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

depends  upon  inventions  and  social  achievements  which, 
just  because  they  are  social,  are  ready  to  his  hand.  There 
is  no  good  reason  why  the  reward  thus  accidentally  meted 
out  should  not  be  limited  by  society  to  an  amount  large 
enough  to  stimulate  the  individual  but  no  larger.  The  re- 
mainder could  go  into  the  coffers  of  the  state  for  social  pur- 
poses. The  reply  of  the  economist  that  many  lose  what 
they  invest  and  that  these  losses  counterbalance  the  ap- 
parently excessively  large  gain  misses  the  point.  It  does 
not  follow  that  an  excessive  reward  to  one  individual  does 
socially  counterbalance  the  losses  of  others.  The  employ- 
ment of  a  large  share  of  this  gain  to  social  ends  would 
directly  aid  those  who  lost  by  helping  to  make  the  penalty 
of  failure  less. 

2.  Socialism  hopes  to  lessen  the  waste  characteristic  of 
present  methods. 

This  aim  of  socialism  has  always  been  stressed  by  all 
the  historical  systems.  The  chief  indictment  against 
capitalism  has  been  this  of  wastefulness.  The  excessive 
development  of  middlemen  who  usually  receive  a  reward 
quite  disproportionate  to  their  services  has  been  noted 
again  and  again.  The  reply  of  the  conservative  that  these 
middlemen  do  perform  services,  nevertheless,  is  beside  the 
point  for  the  socialist  does  not  deny  the  fact.  He  simply 
claims  that  more  efficient  methods  can  be  developed  so 
that  less  labor  will  bring  about  the  same  results  at  less 
social  cost.  Intelligent  and  carefully  considered  methods 
should  take  the  place  of  methods  fostered  by  lack  of 
coordination.  It  is  surely  an  assumption  that  reason 
cannot  grant  without  proof  that  the  desire  for  profit  by 
itself  produces  socially  efficient  methods  and  that  it  can 
therefore  be  trusted.  The  rather  naive  assumptions  of 
laissez  faire  have  been  pretty  well  discredited  by  the  facts, 


WHAT  SOCIALISM  HOPES  TO  ACCOMPLISH     55 

and  I  know  of  no  philosopher,  economist  or  sociologist 
who  would  to-day  undertake  to  defend  them.  If  society 
wishes  to  attain  an  efficient  industrial  organization,  it 
must  disregard  the  blind  cry  for  profit  and  consider  the 
social  good. 

The  wastefulness  of  anarchic  competition  can  best  be 
seen  in  the  attempt  to  secure  a  market,  in  the  spoliation 
of  the  natural  resources  and  in  the  phenomenon  called 
cross  freights.  Let  us  glance  at  these  features  of  anarchic 
competition. 

It  always  surprises  the  uninformed  to  be  told  what 
percentage  of  the  retail  price  of  an  article  is  due  to  the 
attempt  to  secure  a  market.  A  friend  of  mine  who  is  an 
expert  chemist  once  told  me  that  the  raw  material  for  a 
certain  scouring  product  cost  hardly  a  tenth  of  the  price 
at  which  it  was  sold;  the  rest  went  to  factors  like  adver- 
tisement, salesmen,  package-form  and  freight.  Now  cer- 
tain of  these  factors  have  a  distinctly  social  significance 
and  could  never  be  totally  eliminated  but  others  are  grossly 
exaggerated  by  competitive  methods.  "  In  the  Report  of 
the  Industrial  Commission,  we  find  it  stated  by  Mr.  Dowe, 
the  President  of  the  Commercial  Travellers'  National 
League  that  35,000  salesmen  have  been  thrown  out  of  em- 
ployment by  the  organization  of  trusts,  and  25,000  reduced 
to  two-thirds  of  their  previous  salaries.  This  would 
represent  a  loss  of  60,000,000  dollars  in  salaries  on  a  basis 
of  $1200  each."1  In  itself,  this  change  implies  greater 
economic  efficiency  and  must  be  praised  but  this  efficiency 
can  never  be  separated  from  the  larger  question  of  social 
efficiency.  Are  we  sure,  under  present  conditions,  that  the 
saving  redounds  to  the  social  good?  Socialism  says  that  it 
does  not  necessarily  do  so  because  there  is  no  adequate 
1  Quoted  from  Kelley,  "Twentieth  Century  Socialism." 


56  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

social  method  for  its  efficient  distribution.  It  is  an  error 
that  even  political  economy  no  longer  champions  to  main- 
tain that  the  orgy  of  conspicuous  display  that  vitiates 
society  is  industrially  valuable.  Socialism  hopes  to  use 
tendencies  which  have  much  good  in  them  but  are  now 
allowed  to  run  wild. 

The  spoliation  of  our  natural  resources  needs  little 
emphasis  to-day  for  society  at  large  is  pretty  wide-awake 
to  the  situation.  Here  the  fault  is  not  so  much  competition 
as  a  conflict  between  the  material  good  of  the  individual 
capitalist  and  that  of  society.  If  we  give  up  our  natural 
inheritance  and  then  allow  the  lure  of  immediate  profit  to 
work  in  an  uncontrolled  way,  we  pay  the  penalty  as  a 
society  in  two  ways.  We  are  poorer  as  a  society  for  the 
simple  reason  that  the  barbarous  wealth  of  the  few  does 
not  make  the  society  rich,  unless  we  look  upon  society  as  a 
sort  of  fictitious  entity  endowed  with  statistical  attributes. 
What  the  logician  calls  the  "fallacy  of  composition"  has 
been  at  work  in  the  social  mind.  In  the  second  place,  the 
activity  of  the  individual  is  necessarily  short-sighted  when 
we  consider  it  from  the  standpoint  of  society  because  the 
time-spans  of  the  two  differ  so  immensely.  It  is  altogether 
impossible  to  identify  the  profit  of  individuals  with  the 
good  of  society  as  an  historical  organism  stretching  into 
the  future.  Again,  the  activities  of  the  individual  have 
reactions  which  affect  society  but  which  do  not  harm  the 
individual  himself  to  a  degree  that  would  lead  him  to  take 
account  of  them.  The  effect  of  deforestation  upon  the 
land  and  upon  the  rivers  does  not  come  within  his  pur- 
view: similarly,  the  increase  of  human  wreckage  does 
not  fall  upon  the  employer  of  child  labor.  Now  socialism 
hopes  to  institute  a  control  sufficient  at  least  to  take 
these  reactions  upon  the  good  of  society  into  account. 


WHAT  SOCIALISM  HOPES  TO  ACCOMPLISH     57 

Since  many  European  countries  do  this  already,  there  is 
nothing  chimerical  in  the  hope. 

The  phenomenon  of  cross  freights  is  likewise  an  expres- 
sion of  lack  of  efficiency  because  of  anarchism.  The  same 
territory  is  covered  by  hundreds  of  milkmen  in  a  large  city 
where  a  quarter  of  that  number  would  be  amply  sufficient. 
Our  present  lack  of  system  thus  creates  an  immense 
amount  of  labor  which  could  be  avoided  and  the  leisure, 
thus  obtained,  distributed  as  almost  the  greatest  social 
good.  The  increase  of  the  cooperative  spirit  and  methods 
would  gradually  bring  about  a  saving  of  time  and  effort 
almost  incalculable  in  its  benefits  were  it  properly  dis- 
tributed. And  it  is  this  distribution  which  socialism  always 
has  in  mind,  thus  going  beyond  the  efficiency  engineer  who 
does  not  concern  himself  with  the  distribution  of  the  social 
dividend. 

3.  Socialism  hopes  to  eliminate  all  degrees  of  competition 
that  are  obviously  anti-social  in  their  consequences. 

While  modern  socialism  is  not  opposed  to  competition 
of  a  constructive  and  creative  sort,  it  does  not  blind  itself 
to  the  fact  that  much  competition  is  destructive  and  anti- 
social. The  spirit  of  cooperation  and  the  institutions 
which  this  spirit  fosters  are  its  remedies  for  this  unethical 
and  wasteful  competition.  It  is  a  mistake  to  assume  that 
cooperation  excludes  competition :  it  is  just  such  false  con- 
trasts that  a  sound  social  philosophy  would  bid  us  avoid. 
In  order  to  cooperate,  it  is  not  necessary  that  individuals 
lose  the  desire  to  excel.  Social  excellence  can  never  build 
itself  upon  individual  apathy.  What  socialism  wishes  to 
overcome  is  the  present  tendency  to  grant  excessive  re- 
wards for  actions  and  thus  to  nourish  the  merely  acquis- 
itive instincts  of  mankind.  Competition  is  a  force  which 
can  be  made  to  work  for  good  as  well  as  for  harm;  all  de- 


58  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

pends  upon  the  institutions  in  which  it  operates  and  the 
control  which  society  exercises  over  it.1  Competition  like 
any  other  attitude  is  relative  to  the  institutions  which 
furnish  its  background  and  conditions  of  functioning,  and 
it  is  therefore  false  sociology  to  treat  it  as  an  absolute  thing 
to  be  judged  apart.  Now  the  point  the  socialist  makes  is 
that  competition  has  not  been  directed  into  the  proper 
channels  and  so  has  worked  for  both  good  and  evil;  the 
hope  he  cherishes  is  that  a  gradual  alteration  in  the  spirit 
and  institutions  of  society  will  reduce  the  amount  of  de- 
structive competition  and  increase  the  amount  of  healthy 
personal  activity. 

4.  Socialism  hopes  to  eliminate  unmerited  poverty.  I 
narrow  the  hope  to  the  poverty  that  is  unmerited  because  the 
existence  of  such  poverty  is  the  crying  shame  of  the  present. 

At  the  present  time  wages  are  determined  by  the  auto- 
matic working  of  the  principle  of  supply  and  demand.  In 
other  words,  labor  is  a  commodity  on  the  market  and  its 
price  is  fixed  in  much  the  same  way  that  the  price  of  other 
commodities  is  fixed.  There  are,  however,  complex  condi- 
tions governing  both  the  supply  and  the  demand.  These 
factors  tend  to  operate  in  a  more  mechanical  and  unqual- 
ified fashion  in  the  lower  ranks  of  labor  where  the  individ- 
uals are  many  in  number,  competing  among  one  another 
for  jobs  and  unable,  because  of  poverty,  to  hold  back  for 
a  higher  price.  The  supply  of  unskilled  labor  is  relatively 
large;  it  lacks  fluidity;  its  resistance  to  low  wages  is  not 
stubborn;  it  is  deficient  in  power  of  organization  and  it  is 
forced  to  make  a  hasty  bargain  because  of  its  want.  The 
inevitable  result  is  low  wages.  Now,  with  institutions  as 

1  President  Hadley's  belief  in  the  sufficiency  of  an  increasing  public 
morality  should  be  noted  in  this  connection.  But  must  not  such  in- 
crease in  intelligence  and  morality  express  itself  in  social  institutions? 


WHAT  SOCIALISM  HOPES  TO  ACCOMPLISH     59 

they  are,  this  wage  is  too  low  to  meet  the  economic  burden 
placed  upon  the  individual.  Investigation  is  showing  that 
the  budget  of  the  ordinary  family  hardly  makes  possible 
a  decent  and  efficient  standard  of  living,  let  alone  provision 
for  a  rainy  day  of  sickness  or  of  unemployment.  Modern 
civilization  is  demanding  much  of  the  family  and  seldom 
asks  if  it  is  able  to  stand  the  strain. 

It  may  be  well  to  quote  from  a  recent  work  by  Professor 
Hollander,  since  many  people  have  no  conception  of  the 
extent  of  the  poverty  which  exists  in  such  a  rich  country 
as  the  United  States.  "The  probable  amount  of  such 
poverty  (poverty  which  approaches  pauperism)  is  as  im- 
pressive as  its  evident  quality.  .  .  .  The  remarkable 
study  of  the  nature  and  extent  of  poverty  in  the  United 
States,  made  by  Robert  Hunter  ten  years  ago,  and  still 
the  only  serviceable  survey  of  the  subject,  sets  forth  that, 
in  the  industrial  commonwealths  of  the  United  States, 
probably  as  much  as  20  per  cent  of  the  total  population 
are  ordinarily  below  the  poverty  line.  If  one  half  of  this 
estimate  be  applied  to  the  other  commonwealths,  the  con- 
clusion is  that  in  fairly  prosperous  years  'no  less  than 
10,000,000  persons  in  the  United  States  are  in  poverty.' 
In  this  computation  a  purely  physical  standard — 'a  san- 
itary dwelling  and  sufficient  food  and  clothing  to  keep  the 
body  in  working  order*  define  the  poverty  line,  with  no 
monetary  allowance  for  intellectual,  aesthetic,  moral,  or 
social  requirements."  Investigations  in  regard  to  wages 
show  that  "fully  one  half  of  the  adult  males  engaged  in 
gainful  occupations  in  the  United  States  are  earning  less 
than  $626  per  year."  Those  who  are  interested  in  these 
problems — and  they  should  be  all  citizens — should  read 
the  literature  on  the  subject  which  has  been  increasing 
of  late.  Certainly  society  has  something  better  to  do 


60  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

than  to  put  its  hands  in  its  pockets  and  let  these  mal- 
adjustments alone. 

Let  us  see  how  socialism  could  help  this  desperate  sit- 
uation of  the  masses  of  the  population.  In  the  first  place, 
it  would  lead  the  government  to  use  a  part  of  the  social 
surplus  on  public  works  in  order  to  furnish  an  industrial 
reservoir  for  the  relief  of  those  out  of  employment.  Such 
a  means  of  adjustment,  planned  to  make  the  incidence  of 
the  natural  presence  of  a  certain  amount  of  imperfection 
in  the  automatic  working  of  industry  fall  upon  society  as 
a  whole  rather  than  upon  individuals  who  do  not  deserve 
to  be  singled  out  as  scapegoats  and  who  are  least  in  a 
position  to  bear  the  loss,  has  everything  in  its  favor.  Only 
those  who  are  against  government  enterprise  or  who 
accept  the  exploded  theory  of  a  definite  wage-fund  can 
raise  objections  to  it,  while  it  has  both  ethical  and  eco- 
nomic arguments  of  superlative  force  in  its  favor.  The 
ethical  arguments  have  been  suggested  but  it  may  be  well 
to  state  some  of  them  more  explicitly.  It  is  not  fair  for 
society  to  punish  individuals  for  conditions  for  which 
they  are  not  responsible.  This  argument  would  not  hold 
were  there  no  way  out,  but  society  is  rich  and  efficient 
enough  to  provide  such  a  way.  Again,  unemployment 
weakens  a  man's  moral  fiber  and  dampens  the  ardor  of 
his  personality.  It  will  never  be  known  how  many  in- 
dividuals have  broken  down  under  the  ruthless  conditions 
of  the  present.  It  is  false  ethics  to  reply  that  a  man  should 
be  able  to  stand  these  conditions,  for  such  a  rejoinder  is 
based  on  an  a  priori  and  arbitrary  idea  of  what  an  individ- 
ual ought  to  be  able  to  bear,  an  idea  too  often  founded  in 
ignorance  and  nourished  by  the  will  to  believe  because 
the  contrary  would  be  disagreeable.  The  economic  ar- 
gument is  closely  bound  up  with  the  ethical  and  rests  its 


WHAT  SOCIALISM  HOPES  TO  ACCOMPLISH     61 

case  on  the  question  of  efficiency.  It  will  never  be  known 
how  much  labor  power  has  been  lost  because  of  this  short- 
sighted treatment  of  individuals.  Men  work  better  in 
security  than  in  pinching  need,  better  in  mental  and  phys- 
ical health  than  in  sickness. 

But  there  are  other  measures  which  are  already  pre- 
senting themselves  to  governments  as  means  of  preventing 
poverty.  I  cannot  do  better  than  present  the  argument 
of  an  English  liberal  in  support  of  the  measures  in  process 
of  being  put  into  effect  in  England  through  the  cooperation 
of  the  liberal  and  the  labor  parties.  Since  the  labor  party 
is  a  socialist  organization,  the  program  is  relevant  and 
shows  not  only  what  modern  socialism  is  planning  but  also 
what  the  best  liberal  thought  is  working  towards.  "He 
(the  unskilled  laborer),"  writes  Professor  L.  T.  Hobhouse, 
/'ought  not  to  be  denuded  of  all  inherited  property.  As 
a  citizen  he  should  have  a  certain  share  in  the  social  in- 
heritance. This  share  should  be  his  support  in  times  of 
misfortune,  of  sickness,  and  of  worklessness,  whether  due 
to  economic  disorganization  or  to  invalidity  and  old  age. 
His  children's  share,  again,  is  the  state-provided  educa- 
tion. These  shares  are  charges  on  the  social  surplus.  It 
does  not,  if  the  fiscal  arrangements  are  what  they  should  be, 
infringe  upon  the  income  of  other  individuals,  and  the 
man  who  without  further  aid  than  the  universally  avail- 
able share  in  the  social  inheritance  which  is  to  fall  to  him 
as  a  citizen  pays  his  way  through  life  is  to  be  justly  re- 
garded as  self-supporting."1  This  conception  of  a  social 
inheritance  upon  which  Professor  Hobhouse  bases  his 
program  indicates  a  wider  view  of  property  than  enters  the 
horizon  of  the  customary  individualist;  property  is  on  the 
way  to  become  a  social  institution  giving  security  and  the 
1  "Liberalism,"  p.  209,  italics  mine. 


62  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

conditions  of  a  real  freedom  to  all  the  members  of  society. 
It  seems  to  me  that  the  path  of  social  progress  runs  along 
the  line  of  the  increase  of  this  social  inheritance  although  a 
moderate  individual  inheritance  will  be  permitted. 

In  these  ways,  then,  unmerited  poverty  will  be  elim- 
inated. What  standard  of  living  will  be  made  possible 
by  the  better  methods  introduced  by  socialism  cannot  be 
foretold — man  must  always  combat  the  niggardliness  of 
nature — but  there  is  good  reason  to  hope  that  comfort 
will  be  wide-spread. 

5.  Socialism  hopes  to  tap  new  energies  which  are  now 
latent  and  are  not  elicited  by  our  social  arrangements. 

There  are  those  who  hold  that  present  arrangements 
are  peculiarly  favorable  to  production.  The  entire  middle 
class,  according  to  these  advocates,  is  stimulated  by  the 
hope  of  pecuniary  gain  to  an  extent  that  compensates 
for  the  waste  due  to  competition.  It  is  asserted  that  in- 
dividuals invent,  organize,  plan  and  toil  in  order  to  become 
independent  and  to  be  able  to  leave  their  families  out  of 
the  reach  of  want.  As  a  result  the  industrial  machinery 
is  speeded  up  to  a  rate  that  would  otherwise  be  impossible, 
capital  is  saved  and  new  enterprises  are  set  on  foot.  We 
shall  consider  the  truth  and  fiction  contained  in  these 
statements  in  the  next  chapter  in  which  we  shall  deal  with 
the  current  objections  to  socialism;  at  present  we  are  more 
concerned  with  pointing  out  new  sources  of  social  energy 
which  are  allowed  to  lie  idle  because  of  antiquated  social 
methods. 

In  former  years  it  was  assumed  that  need  was  the  most 
effective  motive  to  work.  Work  was  a  thing  towards 
which  people  had  to  be  driven  by  the  pangs  of  hunger 
and  by  the  biting  lash  of  necessity.  When  the  masters  of 
society  found  that  the  physical  lash  was  no  longer  profit- 


WHAT  SOCIALISM  HOPES  TO  ACCOMPLISH     63 

able,  they  used  other  spurs  and  saw  to  it  that  the  laboring 
people  were  not  too  well  off.  They  were  led  to  this  attitude 
by  unconscious  motives  even  more  than  by  conscious  ones; 
greed  and  accepted  theory  harmonized  with  one  another, 
so  that  we  need  not  accept  Thorold  Roger's  belief  that  in 
England  a  veritable  conspiracy  was  set  on  foot.  Men 
believe  readily  what  they  wish  to  believe,  and  I  do  not 
doubt  that  many  members  of  the  leisure  class  to-day 
hold  in  all  faith  that  too  large  wages  are  not  good  for  the 
workmen.  Now  it  would  be  foolish  to  deny  that  need  is  a 
spur  to  work  but  the  assumption  back  of  the  current  form 
of  the  theory  is  that  most  work  is  disagreeable  and  that 
it  cannot  be  given  another  setting.  But  is  there  not  here, 
also,  a  tendency  to  that  abstract  thinking  which  is  so  com- 
mon? Are  not  the  conditions  of  work  an  essential  part  of 
it?  Nothing  but  absolute  need  would  force  me  to  work 
sixteen  hours  a  day  in  a  factory  under  unsanitary  condi- 
tions and  for  a  mere  pittance  that  would  enable  me  only 
to  exist.  Yet  much  of  our  attitude  towards  work  is  the 
social  inheritance  of  the  natural  repugnance  men  felt  to 
such  a  violation  of  their  lives.  Need  of  an  almost  physical 
kind  would  naturally  be  the  only  motive  for  such  work; 
the  only  alternative  to  such  a  conclusion  would  be  the 
assumption  that  a  sort  of  continuous  suicide  is  agreeable. 
In  another  chapter  I  shall  try  to  show  that  a  differ- 
ent social  setting  and  a  reduction  of  the  hours  of  labor 
would  greatly  modify  man's  attitude  towards  work,  so 
I  shall  not  here  linger  upon  that  aspect  of  the  question. 
What  I  wish  to  emphasize  is  the  actual  loss  due  to 
the  lack  of  training,  of  a  vital  education  and  of  wide 
prospects  among  the  mass  of  people.  They  lack  initiative 
and  interest  and  are  not  able  to  put  into  play  the  capac- 
ities they  actually  possess.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  so 


64  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

many  foremen  and  overseers  are  necessary.  Why,  I  have 
watched  gangs  of  laborers  at  work  and  my  heart  has  been 
sick  within  me.  What  listlessness  and  mechanical  routine, 
what  numbers  of  cursing,  chiding  foremen!  How  many 
have  tried  to  analyze  the  situation  psychologically  instead 
of  applying  standards  drawn  from  their  own  attitudes  in 
quite  different  kinds  of  work  under  quite  different  condi- 
tions? These  men  feel  that  they  are  at  the  bottom  of 
society  and  that  they  have  practically  no  chance  to  rise; 
they  know  that  they  were  robbed  of  their  social  birthright; 
no  future  lies  before  them  to  make  them  set  to  with  a  will 
under  its  beckoning  smile.  Personalities  are  like  plants: 
give  them  poor  ground  and  a  cloudy,  frowning  sky  and 
you  cannot  expect  much  fruitage;  give  them  good  soil, 
proper  cultivation  and  the  stimulus  that  sunlight  scatters 
broadcast  and  the  result  will  astonish.  Society  has  been 
deeply  guilty  in  neglecting  the  psychology  of  work.  We 
are  still  doing  for  society  at  large  what  we  refuse  to  do  any 
longer  in  the  schoolroom.  Can  we  expect  to  get  the  best 
results  from  men  by  methods  which,  we  acknowledge,  do 
not  secure  them  from  children?  Why  give  all  our  pedagog- 
ical attention  to  the  school? 

By  means  of  a  vital  education  and  by  increase  of  op- 
portunity for  choice  of  work,  socialism  hopes  to  discover 
capacities  which  are  now  allowed  to  lie  fallow.  It  is  a 
great  mistake  to  assume  that  the  middle  class  has  hered- 
itary abilities  far  above  that  of  the  submerged  masses. 
Genius  does  not  seem  to  obey  the  laws  of  good  form  which 
villadom  complacently  lays  down.  As  Plato,  the  aristo- 
crat, had  to  acknowledge  sadly,  children  of  the  baser 
metals  are  born  from  parents  of  the  nobler  metals  and 
children  of  the  nobler  metals  from  parents  who  show 
little  sign  of  excellence.  Even  if  we  allow  that  genius  is 


WHAT  SOCIALISM  HOPES  TO  ACCOMPLISH     65 

more  frequent  among  those  who  are  financially  better  off — 
a  very  big  assumption  indeed — this  greater  frequency 
would  be  more  than  counterbalanced  by  the  greater  pro- 
portion of  the  poor  in  society  as  at  present  organized.  In 
other  words,  it  is  probable  that  society  is  permitting  at 
least  half  of  its  talent  to  go  to  waste  for  lack  of  opportu- 
nity. Is  not  this  fact  sufficient  in  itself  to  more  than  coun- 
terbalance that  selfish  activity  of  the  profit-seeker  which 
the  economist  so  lauds?  We  must  remember,  moreover, 
that  modern  socialism  permits  the  partial  existence  of  cur- 
rent motives  but  declares  that  stimulation  is  merely  a  rela- 
tive matter.  If  the  highest  income  were  twenty-five 
thousand  dollars,  it  would  be  as  eagerly  sought  after  as  a 
million  dollars  is  now.  Very  few  economists  have  compre- 
hended the  psychological  law  of  relativity  to  which  they 
yet  appeal  in  the  principle  of  the  diminishing  utility  of 
income. 

But  it  is  a  mistake  to  assume  that  social  energy  is  lost 
only  in  the  masses;  the  motive  which  stimulates  the  mem- 
bers of  all  classes  to  save  produces  effects  which  are  harm- 
ful on  the  economic  side  where  the  resultant  saving  is  too 
large.  I  mean  that  those  who  inherit  wealth  are  encour- 
aged to  parasitism.  If  they  avoid  the  Scylla  of  parasitism, 
they  easily  fall  into  the  Charybdis  of  a  lazy  slackness,  a 
good-natured  easy-goingness  which  keeps  the  personality 
at  a  low  level  of  action.  Every  teacher  in  an  American 
university  knows  what  I  mean;  he  knows  the  effect  of  a 
secure  position  in  a  country  permeated  by  materialistic 
individualism  and  materialistic  motives.  The  poor  stu- 
dents are  practically  always  the  best  students,  not  because 
they  have  the  best  brains,  but  because  they  are  alive. 
It  is  a  pity  to  see  healthy,  agreeable  boys  fall  so  desperately 
short  of  their  possibilities  just  because  society,  as  con- 


66  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

trolled  by  their  parents,  has  such  an  imperfect  idea  of  what 
is  good  for  them.  Yet,  as  things  are,  we  cannot  altogether 
blame  the  individual  fathers;  it  is  better  to  be  that  type 
of  man  than  to  be  thrown  into  the  whirlpool  of  the 
present  without  resources.  Thus  energy  is  squandered  in 
all  ranks  of  society  because  of  false  standards  and  eco- 
nomic disharmony.  The  case  of  Carlyle's  poor  Irish  widow 
who  spread  typhoid  in  a  neighborhood,  causing  the  death 
of  both  rich  and  poor,  has  its  subtle  analogies  in  the  way 
luxury  undermines  the  stamina  of  all  classes. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  society  as  at  present  organized 
is  extremely  wasteful  of  its  human  resources,  just  as  it  is  of 
its  material  resources,  and  that  socialism  hopes  to  remedy 
this  evil  by  greater  equality  of  opportunity  and  a  healthier 
emphasis  on  human  welfare.1 

6.  Socialism  hopes  to  make  labor-saving  devices  really 
saving  of  labor. 

The  last  two  centuries  have  witnessed  a  marvellous 
series  of  inventions  adapted  to  do  mechanically  what  could 
previously  be  done  only  by  direct  human  effort.  These 
inventions  have  increased  productivity  immensely  and 
extended  its  range.  The  knowledge  of  nature  developed 
in  science  was  applied  so  that  man  was  able  to  unchain  the 
energy  stored  up  in  the  earth  and  make  it  do  his  bidding. 
Ingenuity,  knowledge  and  energy  combined  have  led  to 
an  almost  complete  change  of  industry.  But  this  process 
of  industrial  transformation  required  capital  and  credit. 
Out  of  the  union  of  money  with  ingenuity  and  organizing 

1  The  birth  of  socialism  out  of  industrialism  is  what  the  technical 
philosopher  calls  the  "heterogeny  of  ends."  Changes  give  rise  to  pur- 
poses and  possibilities  not  previously  thought  of.  Marx  saw  this,  but 
he  mechanicalized  or  dialectized  the  process — the  most  natural  thing 
to  do  in  his  time. 


WHAT  SOCIALISM  HOPES  TO  ACCOMPLISH     67 

ability  modern  capitalism  was  born.  But,  as  we  have  seen, 
society  retained  most  of  the  legal  principles  and  social 
methods  of  previous  eras.  Stress  was  laid  upon  better 
methods  of  production  and  little  attention  was  given  to 
human  cost,  consumption  and  distribution.  The  con- 
sequence was  that  the  social  possibilities  of  the  new 
methods  were  lost  sight  of  in  the  desire  for  individual 
success.  The  old  notions  of  property  were  retained  and 
priceless  stores  of  social  material  such  as  iron,  coal,  petro- 
leum, copper,  etc.,  were  handed  over  to  individual  owners. 
Hence  the  greater  share  of  the  increased  national  dividend 
as  well  as  the  practical  control  of  it  was  lodged  in  the  hands 
of  the  few.  The  mass  of  the  people  became  wage-earners 
competing  with  one  another  for  the  chance  to  work. 

Now  there  is  nothing  in  a  machine  itself  which  would 
make  it  reduce  the  hours  of  labor  of  those  who  run  it. 
All  depends  upon  the  social  use  of  the  machine.  This 
fact  can  be  brought  out  by  certain  alternative  methods 
which  might  have  been  adopted.  We  can  conceive  of  a 
military  aristocracy  controlling  the  distribution  of  the 
product  is  such  a  way  that  the  employers  and  employees 
would  have  only  a  moderate  share  of  the  product  and 
would  be  forced  to  work  long  and  arduously.  We  can 
conceive,  again,  of  a  relatively  large  and  efficient  plutoc- 
racy— say  of  American  stock — owning  and  controlling  the 
dividend  in  such  a  way  that  a  relatively  small  number  of 
uneducated  foreigners  would  have  to  work  long  hours  at 
low  pay  while  the  members  of  the  plutocracy  had  relatively 
little  to  do.  In  both  these  cases,  we  have  class  rule  because 
the  control  of  the  dividend  rests  in  large  measure  in  the 
hands  of  a  class.  It  follows  that  the  actual  incidence  of 
labor  falls  on  individuals  in  the  manner  and  degree  deter- 
mined by  the  social  organization.  The  increase  of  a  leisure 


68  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

class  does  not  mean  the  decrease  of  human  cost  in  produc- 
tion. Society  may  mismanage  inventions  and  get  about 
as  much  harm  as  good  out  of  them. 

But  socialism  hopes  to  make  machines  actually  labor- 
saving  by  more  justly  distributing  the  work  and  the  prod- 
uct. In  this  way,  all  of  society  will  be  acutely  interested 
in  the  character  of  the  things  to  be  done  and  will  pass  to 
obvious  luxuries  only  after  a  healthy  foundation  in  the 
necessaries  and  comforts  of  life  is  assured. 

7.  Socialism  hopes  to  procure  a  fair  degree  of  leisure  for 
each  individual. 

A  real  rather  than  a  formal  democracy  is  interested  in 
the  development  of  its  citizens — in  their  capacity  for  en- 
joyment and  achievement.  And  such  a  healthy  and 
efficient  personality  is  impossible  without  a  fair  degree  of 
leisure.  The  fault  with  democracy  up  to  the  present  is 
that  it  has  been  interested  in  the  machinery  of  a  formal 
political  democracy  to  such  an  extent  that  it  has  tended  to 
neglect  everything  else.  But  should  not  a  true  democracy 
be  vitally  alert  to  the  value  of  leisure?  Our  economic  or- 
ganization has,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  hardly  been  touched  by 
the  currents  of  thought  and  feeling  which  have  led  to  the 
construction  of  representative  government;  it  has  grown 
automatically  as  a  result  of  machinery  and  better  means  of 
communication.  The  time  is  come  when  this  machinery 
will  challenge  the  habits  and  points  of  view  which  political 
democracy  has  been  cherishing.  More  and  more  people 
will  ask  themselves  why,  with  our  increased  capacity  for 
production,  so  many  have  to  work  such  a  pitiably  large 
part  of  their  waking  lives  that  they  are  unable  to  catch 
even  a  glimpse  of  the  artistic  and  intellectual  heritage  of 
the  race,  while  others  have  time  to  burn,  which  they  waste 
in  pseudo-culture  and  aimless  amusements.  Such  ques- 


WHAT  SOCIALISM  HOPES  TO  ACCOMPLISH     69 

tions  will  gradually  awaken  the  social  conscience  in  a  way 
they  do  not  while  most  people  have  a  ready  refuge  in 
inherited  institutions  as  final.  When  an  economic  democ- 
racy is  seen  to  be  a  possibility,  these  customary  sedatives 
will  no  longer  work. 

8.  Socialism  hopes  to  achieve  a  better  distribution  of  human 
costs. 

I  presume  that  this  is  but  another  way  of  saying  that 
socialism  hopes  for  more  justice.  So  long  as  industry  is 
uncontrolled  by  ethical  motives,  division  of  labor  and  long 
hours  are  results  of  that  craze  for  production  as  an  end 
in  itself  which  has  ruled  industry  for  the  last  two  centuries. 
But  extreme  division  of  labor  involves  a  degradation  of 
the  humanity  of  the  workers  since  it  prevents  any  real 
stimulus  in  the  task.  There  must  be  more  social  control 
so  that  division  of  labor  may  be  qualified  by  other  com- 
pensations such  as  change  of  occupation  and  reduced  hours. 

9.  Finally,  socialism  hopes  to  bring  in  its  wake  a  society, 
healthier  physically  and  morally,  and  one  ever  more  capable 
of  developing  sane  and  progressive  institutions. 

Condemnation  has  often  been  passed  upon  the  ethical 
and  artistic  materialism  of  our  present  civilization.  We 
have  stressed  a  feverish  production  at  the  expense  of  a 
sane  distribution  and  a  healthy  and  adequate  view  of  life. 
The  mania  for  exploitation  has  ridden  us  and  there  has 
been  no  adequate  balance  wheel  in  our  system  or  ideals  to 
call  a  halt  to  our  one-sided  life.  With  all  due  acknowledge- 
ment of  the  achievements  in  art,  science  and  philosophy 
which  have  taken  place,  it  yet  remains  true  that  these 
have  been  the  products  of  specialism  and  that  their  in- 
fluence has  not  been  as  gracious  and  widely  extended  as 
could  be  wished.  It  is  the  hope  of  socialism,  as  it  is  of  a 
democracy  which  is  more  than  formally  political,  to  foster 


70  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

a  finer  spirit  than  is  generally  present  to-day  and  to  make 
ever  larger  numbers  of  citizens  capable  of  appreciating, 
if  not  also  of  creating,  things  of  beauty  and  significance. 
Will  it  not  be  a  joy  to  live  in  a  society  where  people  are 
healthy  and  contented  and  have  both  the  time  and  the 
training  to  support  experiments  along  artistic  lines?  But 
even  a  mild  approach  to  such  a  condition  of  affairs  would 
justify  the  industrial  re-organization  which  the  socialist 
hopes  to  set  in  progress. 

It  is  often  asserted  that  socialism  is  stronger  on  its  crit- 
ical than  on  its  constructive  side.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  many  criticisms  made  by  socialists  who  were  in- 
capable of  taking  an  evolutionary  realistic  view  of  condi- 
tions were  exaggerated  and  showed  a  lack  of  perspec- 
tive, an  inability  to  see  the  impersonal  movement  of  society 
as  a  whole.  He  who  has  a  glimpse  of  better  things  or  is 
convinced  of  the  injustice  and  hardship  caused  by  the 
actual  working  of  institutions  is  apt  to  be  impatient. 
Perhaps  he  does  not  realize  the  complexity  of  the  problems 
involved,  perhaps  he  expects  too  much  imagination  and 
unselfishness  from  those  who  are  virtually  in  power.  It 
is  a  hard  question  and  one  over  which  I  have  pondered 
much.  Can  the  moralist  throw  the  blame  for  the  slowness 
of  amelioration  of  conditions  in  the  United  States  upon  an 
impersonal  society  which  must  grow  from  phase  to  phase 
in  an  impersonal  way?  Or  is  there  something  more  per- 
sonal about  it?  Are  those  individuals  who  have  great 
weight  in  the  determination  of  public  opinion  personally 
blameworthy  because  they  do  not  employ  their  influence 
hi  an  overt  fashion  in  favor  of  reform?  Have  we  the  right 
to  expect  more  of  them  than  they  do?  Have  we  a  right  to 
expect  inspired  millionaires  and  inspired  college  presidents? 

What  is  needed  most  of  all  in  the  United  States  is  an 


WHAT  SOCIALISM  HOPES  TO  ACCOMPLISH     71 

aroused  public  opinion.  Out  of  such  an  informed  and 
dynamic  opinion  could  be  born  something  of  the  nature 
of  a  social  conscience  concerning  those  things  which  are 
not  yet  achieved.  And  the  need  for  an  alert,  forward- 
looking  opinion  is  the  justification  of  all  candid  criticism 
of  things  as  they  are.  The  conservative  assumes  that 
criticism  is  of  little  value  to  society  because  he  is  satisfied 
with  things  as  they  are;  so  does  the  so-called  practical  man 
because  he  is  engrossed  with  the  present  and  has  no  vision. 
They  are  wrong  in  this  assumption.  We  can  never  have 
too  much  of  a  healthy  criticism,  the  kind  of  criticism  which 
grows  out  of  reflection  upon  imperfect  yet  remediable 
conditions.  America  has  had  enough  muckraking.  What 
it  now  needs  is  a  constructive  social  revival,  a  new  set  of 
values. 


CHAPTER  IV 
MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  SOCIALISM 

MANY  inadequate  conceptions  of  socialism  are  in  posses- 
sion of  the  public  mind.  Of  recent  years  the  situation  has 
greatly  improved  but  there  is  room  for  further  improve- 
ment. Just  because  of  the  importance  of  a  socializing 
tendency  for  the  future  of  society,  anything  which  helps 
to  root  out  these  misunderstandings  and  to  supplant  them 
by  clear  ideas  of  the  principles  and  methods  advocated  by 
modern  socialism  performs  a  distinct  service.  There  is 
need  for  many  writers  with  differing  perspectives  and  yet 
with  the  capacity  to  think  definitely  about  social  condi- 
tions and  to  state  their  conclusions  in  an  unambiguous 
way.  We  have  here  a  problem  of  social  pedagogy,  and  I 
think  we  can  take  it  for  granted  as  a  general  principle  that 
an  idea  is  best  grasped  when  it  is  looked  at  from  all  sides, 
when  it  is  turned  over  again  and  again  and  presented  in 
all  its  bearings.  When  these  conditions  are  fulfilled, 
misconceptions  will  gradually  fade  away  and  the  future 
of  a  social  principle  will  depend  upon  its  pragmatic  worth. 

Misconceptions  are  due  to  many  causes.  Sometimes, 
the  presentation  of  the  principle  is  faulty  although  the 
hearers  are  favorably  disposed  and  are  quite  capable  of 
grasping  the  ideas  involved.  Sometimes,  there  is  a  bias  in 
the  mind  of  the  listeners  which  prevents  them  from  doing 
justice  to  the  ideas :  they  tend  to  separate  one  feature  from 
its  context,  to  commit  the  fallacy  of  accent  or  false  em- 
phasis as  the  logicians  call  it.  The  "inner  sophist"  is  at 
work  and  we  say  that  the  individual  lacks  fairness  or  open- 

72 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  SOCIALISM  73 

ness  of  mind.  Sometimes — and  this  has  occurred  very 
frequently  in  the  history  of  socialism — abrupt  and  doc- 
trinaire views  belonging  to  earlier  stages  of  the  movement 
are  continued  into  periods  which  look  at  things  differently. 
I  am  sure  that  socialists  themselves  are  often  the  greatest 
.enemies  of  socialism.  To  be  out  of  touch  with  the  char- 
acteristics of  public  opinion  is  to  commit  a  pedagogical 
fault;  to  advocate  methods  which  break  with  the  spirit  of 
a  people  is  to  court  neglect  if  not  dislike. 

Socialism  has  suffered  greatly  from  these  causes  of 
misconception.  In  this  country,  for  instance,  it  has  only 
recently  begun  to  secure  a  fair  hearing.  It  would  be  a 
difficult  task  to  distribute  the  blame  for  this  in  any  fair 
measure  and  to  say  whether  such  neglect  was  due  to  the 
character  of  the  propaganda  or  to  the  inertness  of  the 
social  conscience  of  Americans  and  their  unwillingness 
to  do  things  collectively.  Still  it  would  be  well  for  so- 
cialists to  question  themselves  to  see  whether  their  spirit 
and  the  form  of  their  teaching  could  not  be  better  adapted 
to  the  situation  they  are  face  to  face  with. 

But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  it  has  always  been  the 
fate  of  new  movements  that  challenge  the  current  assump- 
tions and  customs  to  be  condemned  unheard  or  else  to  find 
in  the  public  mind  only  caricatures.  Such  was,  for  ex- 
ample, the  fate  that  befell  the  theory  of  evolution  in 
the  stirring  times  of  the  sixties  and  seventies  of  last  cen- 
tury. Similar  obstacles  overwhelmed  the  Anabaptist 
movement  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  crushed  out  ideas 
which  have  been  revived  since  then  and  shown  to  be 
valuable.  Society  is  essentially  conservative  and  thinks 
more  of  self-preservation  than  of  progress.  Only  after  a 
movement  has  become  comparatively  strong  and  has 
secured  rootage  in  the  spirit  of  large  numbers  of  the  pop- 


74  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

ulation  is  care  taken  to  investigate  it.  In  the  treatment  of 
a  new  movement,  the  natural  tendency  is  to  follow  out  the 
old  proverb,  "Give  a  dog  a  bad  name  and  then  hang  it."  1 
Now  socialism  has  reached  the  stage  where  it  receives  fair 
consideration  and  can  count  upon  a  pretty  just  hearing. 
The  socialist  should,  therefore,  feel  it  his  duty  to  offer  as 
definite  an  idea  of  it  as  a  growing  movement  allows.  We 
have  already  endeavored  to  do  this  in  part  by  indicating 
the  purpose  and  principle  which  really  guides  the  modern 
socialist  movement,  but  it  will  be  well  to  explain  it  neg- 
atively, so  to  speak,  by  contrasting  its  principle  with 
those  of  other  movements  and  by  calling  attention  to 
false  or  hasty  applications  of  this  principle.  Before  going 
farther,  however,  I  wish  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that 
significant  movements  always  have  themselves  partly 
to  blame  for  ideas  which  seem  to  them  later  malicious 
misconceptions.  We  can  apply  here  what  a  clever  English 
writer  has  remarked  in  another  connection !  "  Fools  make 
fewer  mistakes  than  wise  men  but  they  also  discover 
fewer  things  worth  while."  No  significant  movement 
has  gained  consciousness  of  itself  all  at  once.  The  modern 
socialist  should  be  the  first  to  declare  that  mistakes  have 
been  made;  he  should  have  no  false  shame  about  such  an 
admission  for  every  significant  movement  has  had  its 
hasty  generalizations  and  untenable  theories.  Probably 
few  political  theories  have  been  more  effective  for  good 
than  that  of  Natural  Rights  yet,  in  its  usual  form  at  least, 
it  is  untenable,  as  acute  thinkers  have  seen  since  Jeremy 
Bentham's  day.  There  are  no  completely  final  systems 
of  science  or  philosophy,  and  it  is  decidedly  improbable 
that  the  socialist  movement  has  attained  an  entirely  sat- 

1  At  one  time  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  inclined  to  act  in  accordance  with  this 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  SOCIALISM  75 

isfactory  science  and  art  of  society.  Even  granting  the 
possession  of  a  true  principle  which  is  one  with  democracy, 
it  is  at  first  necessarily  encumbered  with  all  kinds  of  cru- 
dities and  exaggerations,  with  too  sharp  contrasts,  with 
lack  of  realization  of  the  complexity  of  the  problems  in- 
volved. The  dogmatic  and  finalistic  attitude  so  easily 
crowds  out  the  critical  and  evolutionary.  To  avoid  too 
great  dogmatism  in  theory  and  in  details  is  the  best  means 
to  keep  a  movement  fresh  and  up-to-date.  Socialism  has 
at  times  failed  to  do  this  and  has  therefore  done  harm  to 
itself.  Yet  in  comparison  with  ordinary  political  parties, 
we  may  say  truly  that  socialism  is  like  science  compared 
to  rule-of-thumb  procedure.  It  seeks  to  grapple  with 
social  problems  in  a  systematic  way  and  offers  the  founda- 
tion for  something  more  truly  of  the  nature  of  statesman- 
ship than  we  have  had  in  this  country.  It  represents  the 
recognition  that  economic  relations  are  to-day  fundamental 
and  must  be  made  subservient  to  the  welfare  of  the  cit- 
izens— a  view  that  our  sociologists  are  beginning  to  grasp 
but  which  is  yet  beyond  the  horizon  of  the  older  parties. 

But  enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  the  misconcep- 
tion of  the  character  of  modern  progressive  socialism  has 
been  natural;  let  us  now  examine  some  of  the  false  con- 
ceptions which  should  no  longer  be  permitted  to  linger  in 
the  public  mind. 

1.  Socialism  is  not  the  same  as  anarchism. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  why  socialism  has  so  often  been 
confounded  with  anarchism.  Of  course,  anarchism  in  its 
strict  sense  and  anarchism  in  the  journalistic  use  of  the 
term  are  by  no  means  the  same.  Now  it  is  the  journalistic 
use  of  the  word  which  has  led  to  its  confusion  with  social- 
ism. To  those  who  see  nothing  to  mend  in  present  con- 
ditions all  suggestions  of  change  are  repugnant  and  are 


76  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

felt  to  strike  at  the  very  roots  of  law  and  order.  When 
people  are  accustomed  to  identify  the  very  existence  of 
society  with  the  principles  and  methods  they  have  in- 
herited from  their  fathers,  criticism  of  these  social  forms 
is  looked  upon  as  subversive  of  all  order.  Such  was  the 
situation  in  America  which  until  the  last  couple  of  decades 
was  an  agricultural  country  with  a  vast  domain  and  com- 
paratively good  opportunities  for  the  energetic  individual. 
Customs,  ideals  and  political  and  economic  principles  had 
grown  up  and  hardened  around  this  favorable  situation. 
Our  isolation  from  Europe,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  sim- 
plicity of  our  whole  social  life,  on  the  other,  led  us,  so  to 
speak,  to  universalize  the  methods  and  principles  to  which 
we  were  accustomed;  we  would  not  consent  even  to  con- 
sider another  plan  of  organization  and  another  set  of  ideals 
and  swept  every  suggestion  aside  as  anarchistic.  This  word 
was  a  blanket-term  used  to  cover  what  was  alien  and  un- 
settling. The  anarchist  was  the  discontented  individual, 
the  foreigner,  the  criminal;  the  popular  imagination  identi- 
fied him  with  the  bomb-thrower  and  pictured  him  as  a 
foreigner  with  a  bristling  beard,  unkempt  hair,  heavy  boots 
and  rough  woolen  shirt.  Americans  with  this  mental  equip- 
ment of  custom  and  prejudice  were  thrown  into  unreason- 
ing terror  by  the  events  in  Chicago  at  the  time  of  the  great 
railway  strike.  That  there  are  individuals  who  strike 
blindly  against  a  social  organization  which  seems  to  them 
cruel  and  unjust  there  can  be  no  doubt.  And  society 
should  not  be  surprised  that  this  is  the  case  unless  it  had 
good  reason  to  believe  that  it  is  always  just.  But  it  is 
obvious  that  socialists  are  not  individuals  who  thus  strike 
out  against  society.  Instead,  they  wish  to  better  the  or- 
ganization of  society  by  legal  means.  The  only  feature 
they  have  in  common  with  the  anarchist  is  the  con- 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  SOCIALISM  77 

yiction  that  the  organization  of  society  is  decidedly  im- 
perfect. 

It  may  be  well,  however,  to  gain  a  clearer  notion  of 
the  nature  of  anarchism  as  a  veritable  social  movement 
leaving  aside  the  "propaganda  by  the  deed"  which  is  an 
adventitious  phase  which  appears  only  under  tyrannies  or 
in  countries  which  have  been  misgoverned  for  a  long  time. 
Anarchism  is  the  opposite  of  centralized  authority,  it  is 
radical  individualism.  It  believes  in  the  method  of  free 
association  and  the  abolition  of  all  institutions  which 
lead  to  conflict  of  rights.  The  anarchist  always  cherishes 
the  hope  that  individuals  are  naturally  social  and  sym- 
pathetic and  that  artificial  institutions  separate  them  and 
cause  the  necessity  for  compulsion  and  authority.  The 
remedy  for  the  ills  of  society  is,  therefore,  to  do  away  with 
these  institutions  and  the  central  government  which  sup- 
ports them. 

Now  the  ideal  of  the  anarchist  is  very  good  in  itself. 
Were  it  possible  to  have  a  sane  and  progressive  society 
controlled  internally  and  autonomously  by  the  principle 
of  free  association,  most  intelligent  men  would  advocate 
it.  In  matters  of  the  mind,  we  already  approach  such  an 
ideal  but  very  few  can  persuade  themselves  that  it  is 
practical  where  organization  of  a  dependable  and  almost 
automatic  kind  is  imperative  as  in  economic  affairs.  The 
socialist  stands,  as  a  consequence,  for  the  principle  of  an 
intelligent,  democratic  organization  of  industry  with 
tested  rules  which  must  be  abided  by  until  they  are 
changed  by  public  opinion.  The  socialist  is  evolutionary 
and  realistic;  the  anarchist  revolutionary  and  sentimen- 
tally idealistic. 

We  usually  think  of  the  government  as  the  sole  source 
of  order  and  therefore  speak  of  the  absence  of  government 


78  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

as  anarchy,  meaning  by  this  term  lawlessness,  disorder  and 
social  chaos.  But  are  we  not  making  a  huge  assumption 
when  we  take  it  for  granted  that  government  is  the  sole 
direct  source  of  social  order — especially  when  we  have  the 
compulsory  function  of  government  in  mind?  We  find, 
for  instance,  a  prominent  publicist  declaring  that  "Au- 
thority is  chiefly  economic  and  not  political  and  public."  1 
It  is  the  compulsory  aspect  of  government  which  the 
anarchist  singles  out.  He  asserts  that,  so  far  as  it  in- 
volves coercion,  it  is  an  attempt  to  keep  in  force  insti- 
tutions which  are  the  natural  creators  of  disorder.  Most 
of  the  order  which  exists  in  the  civilized  world  is  due 
to  contentment  with  conditions  as  they  are,  and  not  to 
government  at  all.  When  the  coercive  branches  of  gov- 
ernment pride  themselves  on  the  order  which  exists 
as  though  they  were  the  sustainers  of  it  all,  they  are  in  the 
position  of  Rostand's  Chantecleer  who  believes  that 
his  crowing  causes  the  sun  to  rise.  Order  has  its  ultimate 
dwelling  in  the  temper,  character  and  condition  of  the 
citizens.  The  trouble  with  us  has  been  that  we  have  dealt 
in  the  main  with  effects  rather  than  with  causes,  with 
putting  out  fires  instead  of  with  the  prevention  of  them. 
'  The  anarchist  believes,  then,  that  coercive  government  is 
the  sign  and  symptom  of  unjust  conditions.  With  this 
thesis  much  of  modern  social  science  is  in  agreement;  but 
the  anarchist  is  not  constructive  and  lapses  almost  imme- 
diately into  sentimental  assertions  which  lack  the  nec- 
essary foundation  of  a  sane  realism. 

The  fault  which  the  socialist  finds  with  both  anarchist 
and  blind  defender  of  the  present  regime  is  essentially  the 
same.  Each  is  governed  by  abstractions,  by  words  rather 

1  Ely,  "Property  and  Contract  in  their  Relation  to  the  Distribution  of 
Wealth,"  p.  133. 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  SOCIALISM  79 

than  by  a  comprehensive  view  of  society.  The  one  blindly 
affirms  the  goodness  of  government  as  such  and  does  not 
trouble  himself  to  separate  out  the  various  functions  of 
government  and  to  ask  himself  how  far  they  are  adjusted 
to  the  best  knowledge  of  the  age;  the  other  sees  only  a 
senseless  routine  of  punishment  uninspired  by  a  human- 
itarian purpose.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  socialist  tries  to 
look  at  these  things  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  radical 
social  scientist,  and  in  no  circle  is  such  literature  more 
eagerly  read  than  in  socialist  groups.  The  socialist  be- 
lieves that  he  aims  to  apply  science  to  life.  Thus  he  is  as 
critical  as  the  anarchist  and  far  more  constructive.  It  is 
not  his  purpose  to  break  sharply  with  the  evolution  of 
society  but  to  guide  that  evolution  in  the  light  of  the  best 
knowledge  and  the  best  ideals.  But,  while  using  this 
knowledge,  he  can  never  forget  that  he  is  a  member  of  a 
living  movement.  As  a  member,  he  has  a  purpose  of  a 
practical  character,  an  active  relation  to  society  which 
the  social  scientist  does  not  always  have.  The  will  to 
create  new  conditions  is  active  in  him. 

It  has  sometimes  been  pointed  out  that  our  traditional 
individualism  has  more  in  common  with  anarchism  than 
with  socialism,  so  far  as  the  texture  of  society  is  concerned. 
Both  seek  to  reduce  government  to  a  minimum.  An- 
archism goes  farther  in  this  direction  because  it  is  critical 
of  the  institutions  which  our  individualism  regards  as 
almost  sacred.  In  other  words,  our  traditional  individual- 
ism has  more  sympathy  with  a  coercive,  central  govern- 
ment because  this  is  needed  to  protect  property  rights. 
Neither  sees  the  constructive  aspects  of  government. 

It  is,  of  course,  absurd  to  push  antitheses  too  far  and  to 
make  them  stand  for  actual  movements  which  are  always 
less  doctrinaire  than  theories.  Socialism  and  anarchism 


80  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

represent  tendencies  which  lead  in  different  directions  and 
encourage  the  adoption  of  different  methods.  There  can, 
I  think,  be  little  doubt  that  the  methods  in  line  with  social- 
ism are  more  in  touch  with  our  present  problems  than  are 
those  of  anarchism.  The  difference  between  the  two  is 
pragmatic  and  comes  out  clearly  to  view  in  the  history  of 
the  movements. 

2.  Socialism  is  not  identifiable  urith  syndicalism  as  such 
though  it  welcomes  certain  tendencies  contained  in  syndical- 
ism. 

We  must  always  remember  that  the  socialist  movement 
is  complex  and  is  in  process  of  finding  itself,  that  is,  of 
securing  a  clear  notion  of  both  its  purposes  and  its  meth- 
ods. When  it  is  balked  or  seems  to  be  too  stagnant  in  one 
direction  it  is  apt  to  burst  forth  in  a  new  spurt  of  energy 
and  effort  in  an  unexpected  quarter.  The  forces  of  dis- 
content and  of  idealism  which  lie  back  of  the  socialist 
movement  are  seeking  a  satisfactory  road  of  advance 
and  the  consequence  of  this  experimental  impulsion  is  the 
appearance  of  relatively  new  movements  like  syndicalism. 
We  may  say,  then,  that  syndicalism  is  an  experimental 
phase  of  the  socialist  movement  due  to  the  inability  of 
the  political  form  1  of  the  movement  to  contain  and  ex- 
haust its  energy. 

There  are  many  misconceptions  of  syndicalism  just  as 
there  are  many  misconceptions  of  the  more  conven- 
tionalized forms  of  socialism.  The  term  has  different 
meanings  in  different  countries  and  various  writers  add 

1 A  distrust  of  representative  government  is  abroad  and  finds  one  of  its 
expressions  in  syndicalism.  There  are  well-grounded  complaints  of 
incompetence  and  nepotism.  (?/.  Lowell,  "Public  Opinion  and  Popular 
Government,"  p.  130,  for  American  conditions,  and  Christensen,  "Poli- 
tics and  Crowd  Morality,"  ch.  VIII,  for  Europe. 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  SOCIALISM  81 

to  these  national  interpretations,  due  to  peculiar  in- 
dustrial conditions,  their  own  peculiar  embellishments. 
The  origin  of  the  term  is  easily  explained  and  this  origin 
helps  to  throw  light  upon  the  movement  itself.  Syn- 
dicalisme  is  merely  the  French  term  for  trades  unionism. 
But  the  labor  unions  in  France  have  a  character  some- 
what different  from  that  possessed  by  similar  move- 
ments in  England  and  the  United  States.  And  syn- 
dicalism reflects  this  divergence  in  history  and  temper. 
In  the  first  place,  conditions  in  France  have  been  decidedly 
different  from  those  in  English-speaking  countries.  The 
spirit  of  the  movement  and  the  method  of  its  organiza- 
tions are  in  large  measure  an  expression  of  these  condi- 
tions and  of  the  past  history  of  the  country.  In  the  second 
place,  the  term,  borrowed  from  the  French  language  rather 
than  translated,  has  furnished  the  symbol  and  the  stimulus 
for  new  and  more  radical  tendencies  in  the  world  of  labor. 
The  very  strangeness  of  the  word  made  it  a  fit  sign  for 
new  departures  and  new  programs.  It  will  repay  us  to 
glance  at  these  two  factors  which  have  helped  to  make 
syndicalism  such  a  significant  word. 

The  French  labor  movement  is  neither  as  old  nor  as 
firmly  founded  as  the  English  movement.  The  American 
movement,  since  the  disruption  of  the  Knights  of  Labor, 
has  displayed  much  of  the  spirit  of  the  English  movement 
being,  perhaps,  even  more  conservative.  In  contrast  to 
our  familiar  federation  of  skilled  laborers  is  the  Confedera- 
tion Generate  du  Travail,  the  famous  C.  G.  T.  of  French 
newspapers,  with  its  emphasis  on  the  solidarity  of  labor, 
its  recognition  of  local  autonomy,  its  revolutionary  aims 
and  its  loose  organization.  The  C.  G.  T.,  as  it  is  usually 
called,  represents  a  fighting  minority  of  French  laborers 
while  its  history  has  been  such  as  to  give  free  rein  to  theory. 


82  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

Partly  because  of  its  history,  partly  because  of  the  in- 
tellectual character  of  its  leaders,  partly  because  of  the 
relative  unimportance  of  the  administrative  side  of  its 
work,  partly  because  of  the  history  of  France  itself,  the 
movement  has  developed  features  which  distinguish  it 
from  the  solid,  unimaginative  trades  unionism  of  other 
countries.  Theories  usually  have  their  foundation  in  con- 
crete facts  and  it  is  impossible  to  understand  some  of  the 
aspects  of  French  syndicalism  apart  from  the  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances of  the  French  labor  world.  Very  few  trades 
have  adequate  national  unions,  the  unions  are  weak 
financially  and  are  compelled  to  trust  to  methods  which 
encourage  violence.  Sectionalism,  the  tyranny  of  the 
minority,  class-consciousnes  on  the  part  of  a  few  and 
apathy  on  the  part  of  the  many,  insufficient  organization 
are  features  which  do  much  to  explain  the  temper  of  the 
C.  G.  T.  But  along  with  drawbacks  of  this  character  go 
idealism  and  a  more  critical  reflection  on  the  position  of 
labor  than  is  to  be  found  in  America.  The  proper  attitude 
to  take  towards  this  development  is  neither  laudation  nor 
wholesale  condemnation;  instead,  it  must  be  understood 
and  its  lessons  learned. 

Now  those  features  which  distinguish  the  French  trades 
union  movement  from  those  of  other  countries  have  been 
taken  as  the  elements  of  the  vague  movement  which  is 
called  syndicalism  in  this  country  and  in  England.  The 
term  has  come  to  mean  revolutionary  unionism,  unionism 
with  a  larger  purpose.  Discontent  with  the  methods  of 
the  craft  unions,  belief  that  the  time  is  ripe  for  industrial 
unions  expressing  the  solidarity  of  labor,  the  feeling  that 
labor  is  interested  in  matters  of  discipline  and  conditions 
of  work  as  well  as  in  wages  and  hours,  the  hope  of  more 
aggressive  action,  all  these  motives  are  at  work  and  roughly 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  SOCIALISM  83 

group  themselves  under  this  new  term  as  their  symbol. 
Syndicalism  is  to  the  old  unionism  as  socialism  is  to  middle- 
class  reformism.  It  represents  the  rising  to  the  surface 
of  ambitions  and  ideals  which  had  been  almost  entirely 
absent  from  the  staid  unions  with  which  we  are  familiar. 
Just  because  the  term  is  an  importation,  just  because  its 
meaning  is  not  fixed,  it  serves  as  a  center  of  crystallization 
for  ideas  and  tendencies  which  look  to  the  future  rather 
than  to  the  past. 

Syndicalism  is  an  economic  movement  in  the  same  sense 
that  the  trades  union  movement  is.  The  difference  is 
that  it  is  at  once  vaguer  and  more  radical.  So  far  as  it  is 
revolutionary  in  its  outlook,  the  chief  difference  between 
it  and  political  socialism  is  that  they  work  in  distinct 
spheres  with  different  problems.  The  aim  of  syndicalism 
is  to  organize  the  workers  in  such  a  way  that  they  will  be 
able  to  gain  greater  control  of  industry  and  try  out  methods 
of  cooperative  production.  Such  is  syndicalism  at  its 
best;  but  it  has  associated  with  it  actions  and  schemes 
which  cannot  meet  with  the  same  approval  as  can  its 
ultimate  plans.  The  tactics  which  have  grown  up  around 
syndicalism  partake  of  an  anarchist  flavor  and,  as  many 
have  pointed  out,  indicate  rather  the  attitude  of  despair 
and  weakness  than  of  courage  and  strength.  The  problem 
is  not  so  much  whether  sabotage  is  abstractly  justifiable — 
in  many  cases  it  probably  is — but  whether  it  is  expedient  in 
the  long  run.  The  view  that  the  relation  between  the  em- 
ployer and  the  employee  is  one  of  veiled  war  is  apt  to  be 
taken  too  literally  and  deductions  made  that  outrage 
other  facts.  On  the  one  hand,  there  is  the  psychological 
objection  that  no  group  can  create  a  system  of  ethics 
which  makes  them  independent  of  society  as  a  whole.  To 
believe  this  would  be  to  forget  that  society  is  very  complex 


84  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

and  that  the  economic  is  only  one  aspect  of  it.  The 
syndicalist  is  in  danger  of  re-instating  that  phenomenon, 
the  economic  man,  which  even  the  economists  have  con- 
sented to  give  up.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  objec- 
tion that  sabotage  requires  a  solidarity  which  weakly  or- 
ganized workers  do  not  possess.  Spies,  informers  and  the 
employer's  weapon  of  the  lockout  are  formidable  obstacles 
to  its  successful  application.  But,  above  all,  the  question 
of  its  necessity  must  be  raised.  Suppose  that  the  morals 
of  the  workers  could  resist  it,  suppose  that  public  opinion 
in  general  would  not  be  outraged  to  such  a  degree  that  it 
would  take  the  employer's  side,  suppose  that  the  solidarity 
of  the  workers  was  such  that  they  could  present  a  united 
front  to  the  employers — and  to  suppose  these  things  is  to 
suppose  very  much  indeed — the  further  question  arises, 
Would  illicit  injuries  be  necessary  in  the  struggle?  Such 
solidarity  and  such  class-consciousness  would  of  themselves 
give  the  workers  a  weight  in  the  decision  of  the  industrial 
problems  that  would  lead  to  experimental  efforts  along  the 
lines  suggested  by  them.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in 
France  to-day  less  is  heard  of  sabotage  than  was  heard  a 
few  years  ago.  As  unions  grow  in  strength,  they  turn  their 
backs  on  guerilla  warfare. 

So  far,  then,  as  syndicalism  stands  for  a  deepening  of 
trades  unionism  the  socialist  is  in  favor  of  it.  The  reason 
for  this  attitude  is  that  he  believes  that  a  new  industrial 
organization  cannot  be  made  from  the  outside  and  thrust 
upon  those  engaged  in  industry  but  must  rise  in  part  at 
least  from  their  lives  and  problems.  In  Germany,  for  in- 
stance, political  socialism  and  trades  unionism  are  in 
alliance  and  yet  each  movement  retains  its  autonomy. 
Political  socialism  meets  its  own  parliamentary  problems 
while  the  organized  labor  movement  faces  its  own  concrete 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  SOCIALISM  85 

situation  in  an  empirical  way  while  guided  in  its  general 
policy  by  the  idealism  and  perspective  it  secures  from  its 
contact  with  socialism. 

But  syndicalism  has  not  always  been  content  to  look 
upon  itself  as  one  movement  among  many.  Certain 
theorists  have  gone  to  the  extreme  of  interpreting  it  as 
involving  the  ideal  that  the  producers  alone  should  control 
industry.  As  can  readily  be  seen,  this  ideal,  although  it  is 
suggestive,  is  one-sided  because  it  neglects  the  interests  of 
the  consumer.  The  doctrine  of  the  "  Mine  for  the  Miners  " 
with  its  non-social  tendency  would  lead  to  a  competition 
among  the  mass  of  the  workers  for  preferential  advantages 
as  producers  and  would  throw  the  consumptive  side  of 
the  social  economy  into  confusion.  Monopoly  cannot  be 
justified  any  more  for  a  laboring  group  than  for  a  cap- 
italistic group.  The  only  adequate  standard  is  the  good 
of  the  community  as  a  whole  and,  to  enable  this  stand- 
ard to  become  effective,  there  must  be  a  larger  con- 
trol than  that  exercised  by  the  producers.  But  such  a 
control  necessitates  the  existence  of  something  corre- 
sponding to  the  state,  although  it  may  well  be  a  state  with 
a  different  perspective  than  that  which  characterizes  most 
present  ones.  There  must  be  some  unifying,  coordinating 
body  which  can  see  relations  in  the  large  and  adjust  con- 
flicting interests  in  the  light  of  the  whole. 

There  is  one  more  point  which  needs  comment  because 
it  reveals  a  weakness  in  many  of  the  heated  controversies 
of  the  present.  There  is  a  tendency  abroad  to  consider 
the  economic  aspect  of  life  as  the  sole  important  aspect. 
Industry  has  been  threatening  to  overwhelm  other  phases 
of  human  existence  and  this  exaggeration  has  reflected 
itself  in  theory  just  as  it  has  in  every  day  life.  The  eco- 
nomic struggle  is  so  bitter  that  men  see  each  other  as  pro- 


86  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

ductive  agents  and  forget  the  other  relations  which  hold 
between  them  and  lose  sight  of  those  enduring  values  which 
make  the  chief  glory  of  human  life.  When  we  remember 
the  small  part  the  state  of  the  nineteenth  century  took 
in  the  fostering  of  common  interests,  we  cannot,  however, 
blame  those  who  see  in  the  political  state  only  an  instru- 
ment of  oppression.  It  is  because  of  this  inclination  to 
look  upon  the  state  as  an  instrument  of  reaction  that 
syndicalism  approaches  anarchism.  It  cannot  see  the 
democratic  state  of  the  future  because  the  plutocratic 
state  of  the  present  shuts  out  the  view. 

We  may  say,  then,  in  conclusion,  that  syndicalism  is  in 
many  ways  a  wholesome  movement,  more  progressive 
than  past  trades  unionism  and  stressing  the  importance 
to  the  worker  of  some  measure  of  control  over  the  condi- 
tions of  his  labor.  The  worker  must  shake  himself  loose 
from  his  apathy  and  make  his  contribution  to  the  industrial 
organization  of  the  future.  Those  who  hope  for  freedom 
must  deserve  it;  they  must  show  that  they  can  shoulder 
responsibility.  Any  tendency  to  anarchism  comes  from 
narrowness,  from  a  natural  bias  to  over-emphasize  certain 
features  of  human  relationship  at  the  expense  of  others. 
Now  socialism  does  stress  this  wider  horizon  and  is  in  a 
position  to  give  a  truer  perspective  to  movements  which 
grow  out  of  the  toil  and  moil  of  particular  problems. 

3.  Socialism  is  not  bureaucratic. 

Modern  socialism  has  its  eye  upon  the  golden  mean  so 
admired  by  the  Ancient  Greeks;  it  aims  to  steer  between 
the  Scylla  of  anarchism  on  the  one  hand  and  the  Charybdis 
of  bureaucracy  on  the  other.  Is  it  not  in  its  favor  that 
certain  of  its  enemies  accuse  it  of  anarchism  while  others 
assert  that  it  is  patently  bureaucratic?  We  have  tried  to 
show  that  it  agrees  with  anarchism  in  its  desire  for  the 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  SOCIALISM  87 

greatest  possible  amount  of  social  freedom,  but  seeks  to  lay 
a  firm  economic  foundation  for  this  desired  freedom;  it  is 
concrete,  empirical  and  evolutionary  where  the  latter  is 
abstract,  doctrinaire  and  revolutionary.  Let  us  see  how  so- 
cialism hopes  to  escape  the  danger  of  autocratic  officialism. 

It  is  surprising  how  wide-spread  is  this  misconception 
of  socialism.  How  often  we  hear  of  socialism  as  the  coming 
slavery,  the  servile  state,  the  rule  of  the  minority!  It  is 
easy  enough  to  understand  why  Herbert  Spencer  and  his 
disciples  were  led  to  regard  socialism  in  this  light,  for 
they  were  still  dominated  by  the  laissezfaire  individualism 
of  the  previous  epoch.  But  the  truth  is  that  this  individ- 
ualism was  not  individualistic  enough — when  an  individual 
is  protected  in  property  rights  of  all  sorts  which  give  him 
a  differential  advantage  over  large  masses  of  men,  how  can 
he  dream  for  a  moment  that  this  is  true  laissezfaire?  The 
individualism  of  this  epoch  was  too  abstract  and  doc- 
trinaire and  did  not  consider  the  only  valid  test  of  social 
procedure,  the  welfare  of  the  nation  in  the  long  run. 
Experience  soon  showed  that  factory  laws  were  necessary 
if  the  race  were  not  to  degenerate.  Thus  experience  gave 
the  lie  direct  to  the  optimistic  "let  alone"  or  "let  be"  of 
Smith  and  his  followers.  The  modern  attitude  seems  to 
reflect  concrete  experience  when  it  no  longer  trusts  to  the 
working  out  of  supposed  natural  laws  of  distribution  based 
on  private  property  and  aggressive  selfishness.  Adminis- 
trative nihilism,  as  Huxley  called  it,  has  gone  by  the  board 
in  practically  all  modern  states  and  we  in  America  have 
been  recent  witnesses  of  its  departure.  Social  control  is 
the  order  of  the  day  enforced  by  the  logic  of  the  facts. 
Hence,  the  question  comes  to  be,  Does  socialism  offer  the 
best  form  of  social  control? 

It  is  really  astonishing  what  pictures  of  the  socialist 


88  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

state  are  drawn  by  those  who  should  know  better.  They 
must  get  their  inspiration  not  from  the  platform  of  the 
socialist  party  but  from  traditional  ideas  of  socialism  as 
paternalistic  and  autocratic  and  prone  to  meddle.  In 
short,  the  assumption  is  that  the  government  is  something 
apart  from  the  citizens  and  not  the  citizens  organized 
cooperatively.  It  seems  impossible  for  large  numbers  of 
people  to  realize  that  democracy  means  that  people  should 
at  last  be  able  to  do  things  for  themselves  in  a  social  way. 
Now  what  people  do  for  themselves  cannot  be  paternal- 
ism. It  simply  testifies  to  the  fact  that  the  government 
is  no  longer  a  semi-caste  affair  but  an  instrument  which 
the  citizens  have  at  last  learned  to  handle  for  their  own 
benefit.  It  would  seem,  then,  that  this  misconception 
of  socialism  is  largely  due  to  the  lingering  on  in  legal  and 
business  circles  of  the  old  external  notion  of  government. 

Modern  socialism  does  not  begin  "with  a  contempt 
for  ideals  of  liberty  based  on  a  confusion  between  liberty 
and  competition"  nor  does  it  conceive  mankind  "as  in  the 
mass  a  helpless  and  feeble  race  which  it  is  its  duty  to  treat 
kindly."  Those  who  are  acquainted  with  the  extremely 
democratic  machinery  by  means  of  which  the  socialistic 
party  is  directed  in  America  can  only  regard  the  above 
statements  as  due  to  a  lack  of  knowledge.  They  in- 
volve a  misconception  which  can  thrive  only  in  one  who 
has  had  no  first-hand  contact  with  the  socialism  of  to-day. 
Nowhere  is  there  a  more  persistent  attempt  to  work  out 
the  problem  of  practical  democratic  control.  There  is  an 
interest  in  the  process  as  well  as  in  the  result — an  attitude 
which  is  deadly  to  bureaucracy. 

Socialists  speak  of  the  bureaucratic  interpretation  of 
socialism  as  state  capitalism  and  deny  that  it  has  much  in 
common  with  democratic  socialism.  It  lacks  that  social 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  SOCIALISM  89 

purpose  which  we  stressed  so  much  in  our  definition  of 
socialism.  Thus  it  is  dominated  by  the  aim  of  economic 
efficiency  and  retains  the  traditional  separation  of  eco- 
nomics from  the  larger  problem  of  human  welfare.  Mere 
government  ownership  by  itself  does  not  meet  the  require- 
,  ments  of  the  socialist  ideal  since  it  depends  upon  the  nature 
of  the  government  and  the  spirit  in  which  enterprises  are 
run  whether  such  ownership  represents  much  of  an  advance 
over  private  control.  The  consumer  may  gain  while  the 
producer's  lot  is  little  bettered.  While  syndicalism  places 
too  much  stress  upon  the  producer,  state  capitalism  is  apt 
to  look  at  things  too  much  from  the  standpoint  of  the  con- 
sumer. The  social  mean  is  half-way  between  these  two 
extremes. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  do  not  think  state  capitalism  of  a 
harsh  type  is  to  be  expected  in  democratic  countries.  If 
we  can  judge  at  all  from  the  situation  in  Australasia,  the 
general  spirit  of  society  will  give  the  temper  in  which 
government  ownership  will  be  administered.  Even  in  the 
United  States,  the  usual  contention  is  that  the  lower 
grades  of  government  employees  are  treated  better  than 
in  private  enterprises.  Yet  changes  in  control  and  owner- 
ship are  not  in  themselves  very  revolutionary  and  it 
would  be  absurd  to  expect  very  marked  improvements  in 
social  ethics  immediately  to  follow  them.  While  captains 
of  industry  are  permitted  autocratic  control  of  their  em- 
ployees, we  must  not  be  surprised  to  find  that  high  govern- 
ment officials  trained  in  the  same  school  take  a  similar  at- 
titude and  forget  that  they  are  the  servants  of  the  people. 

Thus  bureaucracy  is  a  psychological  state  of  mind  more 
than  an  economic  system.  The  way  to  protect  ourselves 
against  it  is  to  study  the  social  conditions  which  foster  it. 
The  methods  of  control  which  are  slowly  developing  in 


90  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

trades  unions  and  in  political  institutions  will  undoubtedly 
be  applied  as  a  check  upon  any  tendency  to  the  over- 
growth of  officialism.1 

4.  Socialism  is  not  communism. 

It  is  not  uncommon  to  meet  with  individuals  who  think 
of  socialism  as  advocating  the  equal  division  of  property, 
taking  from  those  who  evidently  have  too  much  for  their 
needs  and  giving  to  those  who,  as  evidently,  have  too  little. 
Such  a  static  division  of  property  without  any  modifica- 
tion of  the  industrial  system  would  obviously  only  cause 
dissatisfaction  on  the  one  hand  and  laziness  on  the  other. 
It  is  not,  therefore,  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  crushing 
retort  is  aimed  at  socialism,  so  understood,  that  it  would 
disorganize  social  relations  and  would  lead  to  no  lasting 
benefit  since  the  old  inequality  would  soon  return  because 
of  differences  in  ability  and  thrift.  But  it  should  be  clear 
by  now  that  socialism  is  interested  in  processes  and  in- 
stitutions and  not  merely  in  mathematical  results  reached 
by  a  governmental  deux  ex  machina.  Only  a  crude  in- 
dividualism could  dream  for  a  moment  of  such  unscientific 
solutions  for  social  problems.  Popular  misconceptions  of 
socialism,  in  this  country  particularly,  are  cast  in  the  vein 
of  eighteenth  century  individualism;  the  importance  of 
processes  and  institutions  is  hardly  understood.  Were 
this  country  still  mainly  an  agricultural  nation,  it  would 
theoretically  be  possible  to  divide  the  land  up  into  farms 
of  equal  extent  but  there  would  be  no  way  of  guaranteeing 

1  "Whatever  the  perils  may  be  in  countries  which  have  inherited  a 
self-sufficient  bureaucracy  from  a  monarchical  past,  there  would  be 
little  danger  here  that  permanent  officials  properly  supervised  by  non- 
professionals  would  be  more  seriously  out  of  touch  with  public  sentiment 
than  temporary  officials  supervised  by  professional  politicians."  Lowell, 
"  Public  Opinion  and  Popular  Government,"  p.  290. 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  SOCIALISM  91 

that  the  incomes  derived  would  be  the  same.  Socialism 
deals  with  fact,  not  with  fiction,  and  proposes  to  improve 
processes  and  institutions  so  that  desirable  results  may 
flow  from  them  with  the  least  interference  from  outside. 

But  communism,  strictly  speaking,  stands  for  the  owner- 
ship and  enjoyment  of  things  in  common.  What  may  be 
called  local  communism  was  very  usual  in  early  times  and 
still  lingers  in  Russia  and  among  primitive  races  in  many 
parts  of  the  world.  Such  communism  must,  however,  be 
qualified  before  it  can  be  understood  by  western  nations. 
In  backward  countries  the  individual  is  not  the  free,  un- 
trammelled person  we  are  accustomed  to,  not  one  who 
plans  and  acts  out  his  own  life  on  his  own  initiative,  but 
one  who  obeys  customs  and  usages  of  the  most  rigid  sort. 
He  is  the  individual  whose  life  is  merged  in  that  of  the 
group  to  a  degree  that  we  can  hardly  now  conceive  of.  In 
such  communism  life  must  be  very  simple  and  the  individ- 
ual not  very  self-conscious,  or  else  there  must  be  some  very 
strong  bond  of  union  between  the  members  such  as  reli- 
gious sentiment  or  fierce  local  patriotism.  It  is  for  this 
psychological  reason  that  modern  experiments  in  com- 
munism have  succeeded,  in  the  main,  only  when  under- 
taken by  religious  sects. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  agricultural  communism  is  scarcely 
more  efficient  than  individual  enterprise  and  has  obvious 
drawbacks  with  human  nature  as  it  is.  Industrial  com- 
munism is  still  less  workable  because  it  would  involve 
more  complex  conditions  and  inter-relations.  The  psy- 
chological atmosphere  suitable  to  communism  in  its 
primitive  form  has  been  outgrown  as  man  has  passed  from 
status  and  custom  to  contract  and  law;  and  it  is  very 
doubtful  whether  anything  corresponding  to  it  is  either 
likely  or  desirable.  Why,  I  shall  try  to  show. 


92  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

The  prime  difference  between  socialism  and  communism 
lies  in  the  method  of  distribution  of  the  earned  income. 
Socialism  holds  to  the  method  of  private  income  and  pri- 
vate property  while  communism  denies  its  propriety. 
In  this  regard,  I  take  it,  socialism  harkens  to  the  voice 
of  human  experience  and  is  in  line  with  evolution.  Free- 
dom of  choice  and  ability  to  obtain  some  degree  of  self- 
expression  are  nearly  inseparable  from  the  possession  of 
income  privately  controlled.  So  long  as  this  income  is 
secured  justly,  the  individual  is  better  for  the  responsibility 
which  it  involves  and  society  is  richer  for  the  number  of 
experiments  going  on  in  its  midst.  Distribute  respon- 
sibility over  society  as  a  whole  and  the  consequences  of 
his  actions  do  not  strike  home  to  the  individual  directly 
and  poignantly  enough  to  control  his  future  conduct. 

Any  moderately  practical  communism  adapted  to  the 
level  which  society  has  actually  reached  would  necessitate 
either  equality  in  the  use  of  the  community's  income — 
really  a  form  of  distribution — or  the  enforcement  of 
sumptuary  laws — a  method  of  control  apt  to  conflict  with 
the  freedom  of  the  individual.  Communism  would  seem, 
therefore,  to  be  vaguer,  more  sentimental  and  more  in- 
clined to  bureaucracy  than  socialism;  perhaps  it  is  for  this 
reason  that  so  many  of  the  past  Utopias  have  been  com- 
munistic rather  than  socialistic.  As  Aristotle  points  out 
in  his  criticism  of  Plato's  Republic,  communism  aims  at 
too  great  a  unity  and  tends  to  despise  the  actual  incentives 
and  motives  which  work  in  human  life.  Were  human 
nature  other  than  it  is  or  were  the  national  dividend  far 
greater,  communism  might  be  the  ideal  form  of  social 
organization.  But  it  is  foolish  to  forget  historically  rooted 
values  and  habits  in  one's  theories,  for  humanity  will  not. 


CHAPTER  V 
OBJECTIONS  TO  SOCIALISM 

Now  that  we  have  called  attention  to  the  more  im- 
portant misconceptions  of  socialism  we  are  in  a  position 
to  examine  objections.  We  shall,  I  think,  discover  that 
many  of  these  objections  are  based  on  erroneous  ideas  of 
the  kind  of  society  that  modern  socialism  advocates.  When 
this  is  the  case,  our  prior  study  of  current  misconceptions 
will  enable  us  to  dismiss  such  objections  quite  summarily. 
But  other  criticisms  cannot  so  easily  be  set  aside  for  they 
point  to  difficulties  not  enough  noticed  by  socialists.  It  is 
only  human  not  to  go  too  far  afield  to  hunt  out  problems 
and,  with  the  best  intention  to  be  philosophical  in  their 
attitude,  socialists  have  been  at  times  inclined  to  be  at 
ease  in  Zion.*  There  is  much  truth  in  the  old  proverb  that 
our  enemies  are  often  our  truest  friends  since  they  keep 
us  alert  and  progressive*  The  proper  kind  of^ejie^ay  to 
have  is  the  intellectual  tyge  who  does  not  keep  on  swing- 
ing the  same  old  club  but  invests  in  a  rapier  and  forces  us 
to  examine  all  the  links  in  our  armor.  There  have  been 
altogether  too  few  of  this  variety  of  anti-socialist  for  the 
good  of  socialism.  The  majority  of  opponents  have  been 
too  little  stimulating  because  uninformed  or  merely  prej- 
udiced. What  socialism  needs  to-day  is  penetrative,  sym- 
pathetic and  basic  criticism. 

By  examining  objections  to  socialism,  we  shall  at  one  and 
the  same  time  test  the  principle  of  the  movement  and  see 
how  it  must  develop  in  order  to  meet  actual  conditions. 
No  social  ideal  can  be  considered  true  which  is  not  prac- 


94  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

tical,  for  the  simple  reason  that  such  an  ideal  has  no 
significance  for  human  life.XAll  ideals  must  be  held  sub- 
ject to  a  progressive,  empirical  verification.  J^- So  far  as 
socialism  has  neglected  to  stress  that  interaction  between 
theory  and  fact  by  means  of  which  theories  are  modified 
and  give  rise  to  specific  plans,  it  has  thought  abstractly. 
But  just  because  the  results  of  experiments  cannot  be 
anticipated,  this  incompleteness  has  not  been  altogether 
the  fault  of  socialism.  We  must  not  demand  of  it  what  we 
do  not  demand  of  the  scientist.  And  if  a  society  like  that  of 
the  United  States  is  unwilling  to  make  social  experiments, 
it  must  expect  to  progress  very  slowly  and  to  see  other 
nations  forge  ahead  and  become  the  leaders. 

But  we  are  now  aware  that  political  democracy  was  also 
perforce  guilty  of  abstractness  and  of  the  mistakes  that  a 
land  of  deductive,  over-simplified  abstractness  brings  in 
its  wake.  Jacksonian  democracy  with  its  crude  notions  of 
equality  which  ignored  fitness  for  specific  duties  has  ceased 
to  be  our  ideal.  Even  representative  government  no 
longer  has  the  clear  meaning  it  was  once  supposed  to 
have;  should  mere  arbitrary  tracts  of  territory  be  repre- 
sented or  should  various  social  groups  find  their  conscious 
expression  in  legislature  and  congress?  Once  more,  we 
have  found  some  difficulty  in  working  out  the  proper 
mechanism  for  political  democracy.  The  party-system 
sprang  up  naturally  but  led  to  corruptions  which  nullified 
the  purpose  of  democracy.  The  caucus  and  the  boss  and 
the  long  ballot,  all  arose  to  bewilder  and  thwart  popular 
sovereignty.  And  yet  political  democracy  was  worth 
trying  in  spite  of  all  these  unforeseen  mishaps  and  diffi- 
culties. Life  is  a  process  of  experiment  and  we  can't  get 
to  results  without  going  through  the  process.  If  people 
would  only  grasp  this  fundamental  principle,  half  of  the 


OBJECTIONS  TO  SOCIALISM  95 

objection  to  democracy — which  is  more  wide-spread  than 
is  usually  supposed — would  vanish.  Wisdom  comes  with 
experience  and  only  a  small  portion  of  this  hard-bought 
experience  can  be  anticipated.  Humanity  is  never  quite 
certain  of  what  it  can  do  until  it  actually  tries. 
I  Now  socialism  has  the  advantage  of  this  political 
evolution  while  it  will  have  new  problems  of  its  own  to 
meet  and  solve.\But  so  long  as  the  movement  is  supple, 
malleable  and  experimental  it  will  win  out.  It  cannot, 
however,  for  that  very  reason  lay  down  beforehand  a  set 
scheme  in  all  its  entirety. 

It  is  becoming  ever  more  clear  that  social  values  in 
which  true  liberty,  social  justice  and  relevant  equality 
are  the  prime  ideals  at  work  are  guiding  the  onward  march 
of  events.  More  often  inconspicuous  than  in  the  focus  of 
public  consciousness,  they  win  by  the  constancy  of  the 
pressure  they  exert.  The  modern  socialist  is  convinced 
that  this  process  of  development  will  lead  along  the 
lines  his  movement  has  sketched  ;J\he  believes  that  the 
society  of  the  future  will  be  a  socialist  society  just  because 
that  is  the  only  type  which  is  fitted  to  express  humanity 
at  its  higher  levels."^  The  socialist  no  longer  belittles  the 
part  which  choice  plays  in  the  evolution  of  society  although 
he  is  still  impressed  by  the  massiveness  of  the  process  and 
the  importance  of  changes  which  at  first  had  no  obvious 
relation  to  social  ideals. 

But  this  prediction  limits  itself  to  the  more  general  lines 
of  social  structure.  It  is  necessary  to  grasp  this  limitation 
if  we  are  to  appreciate  the  injustice  of  those  criticisms  of 
socialism  which  assume  that  it  is  a  ready-made  scheme 
with  no  capacity  to  adapt  itself  to  changing  conditions, 
f  Socialism  is  a  movement  and  not  a  fixed  system*  It  is 
this  fact  that  is  so  often  forgotten  by  its  critics.  No  vital 


96  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

» 

movement,  calling  into  action  all  the  powers  of  reflection 
which  its  followers  possess  and  guarded  by  the  warnings  of 
opponents,  can  help  being  influenced  by  the  time-spirit. 
Modern  socialism  is  realizing  that  it  can  be  truly  scientific 
while  being  little  more  than  a  purpose,  a  principle  and  a 
direction  for  experiment. 

With  this  general  understanding  of  the  empirical  tenor 
of  modern  socialism  in  mind,  let  us  pass  to  a  careful  con- 
sideration of  objections.  These  may  be  divided  into  two 
groups,  those  which  concern  objections  to  the  ethical  founda- 
tions  of  socialist  theory,  on  the  one  hand;  and,  on  the  other, 
those  which  assert  that  socialism  is  impracticable.  While 
this  classification  of  objections  to  socialism  is  as  complete 
as  can  be  expected  and  covers  the  field,  it  does  not  exclude 
a  certain  amount  of  overlapping.  We  shall  find  the  factor 
of  misconception  working  in  the  most  subtle  way  in  both 
of  the  groups. 

Those  who  object  to  socialism  because  they  regard  it  as 
anarchistic  must  be  referred  to  the  contrast  between  it 
and  anarchism  which  was  drawn  in  the  preceding  chapter. 
Socialism  believes  in  law  and  order  but  desires  this  social 
peace  to  grow  out  of  the  contentment  which  an  effective 
and  concrete  justice  will  inevitably  bring  in  its  wake.  It 
dislikes  repression  because  it  regards  the  need  for  the 
exertion  of  external  authority  as  a  symptom  of  maladjust- 
ment in  the  social  organization.  It  is  sometimes  said  by 
those  who  wish  to  surprise  the  defender  of  the  present 
order  that  socialism  demands  more  laws  than  are  in  ex- 
istence to-day  rather  than  fewer.  This  statement  is  par- 
tially true,  yet  it  may  be  misleading.  While  unregulated 
competition  and  the  exaltation  of  private  property  rights 
have  led  to  conditions  in  which  social  disunion  and  chaotic 
individualism  threaten  to  be  the  distinguishing  marks  of  a 


OBJECTIONS  TO  SOCIALISM  97 

warring  society,  and  have  thus  given  point  to  the  rejoinder 
of  the  socialist  to  the  conservative,  that  present  society  is  a 
species  of  unconscious  anarchism,  they  have  also  enforced 
the  passage  of  complicated  sets  of  laws  purposing  to 
maintain  these  competitive  and  selfish  groups  in  some  sort 
of  a  working  adjustment.  Thus  anti-social  individualism 
combined  with  rights  has,  as  the  reverse  of  the  shield,  an 
increase  of  laws  supposed  to  establish  the  rules  of  the 
game.  I  believe  that  few  reflective  individuals  can  help 
feeling  that  the  tremendous  complication  of  modern  law 
is  an  indictment  of  the  character  of  our  social  organization. 
Happy  are  those  people  who  are  so  related  to  one  another 
that  they  need  few  laws!  I  cannot  regard  the  multiplica- 
tion of  laws  as  a  favorable  sign;  instead,  it  seems  to  me  a 
confession  of  unnecessary  complexities.  In  science,  the 
first  stage  of  development  is  always  more  complicated  in 
its  expression  than  later  stages;  the  maturity  of  a  science 
coincides  with  simplicity  of  statement:  a  few  clear  prin- 
ciples are  discovered  which  bind  the  field  into  one  and 
make  the  old  external  and  haphazard  groupings  no  longer 
satisfactory.  Now  the  same  sequence  of  events  will 
probably  present  itself  in  government.  An  unsatisfactory 
organization  of  society  involves  a  system  of  laws  if  social 
disaster  is  not  to  intervene.  But  this  scholastic  appeal  to 
laws  and  the  belief  in  their  necessity  and  absolute  value 
implies  shortsightedness  and  unwillingness  to  probe  for 
causes.  It  is  probable  that  socialism — if  it  does  represent 
a  higher  order — will  do  away  with  the  causes  of  that 
efflorescence  of  legal  and  legislative  machinery  which 
puzzles  many  to-day.  In  place  of  the  cycles  and  epicycles 
of  the  present  Ptolemaic  system  we  shall  have  the  noble 
harmony  and  simplicity  of  the  Copernican  era  of  society. 
A  society  which  rejoices  in  doctors  and  lawyers  has  lost 


98  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

i 

its  sense  of  perspective.  Just  as  the  science  of  hygiene 
should  decrease  the  need  for  doctors  as  mere  practitioners, 
so  the  science  of  society  should  so  re-organize  human  rela- 
tions that  they  will  fall  of  themselves  into  a  self-controlled 
harmony.  Thus  the  transitional  era  between  the  present 
order  and  a  more  social  order  may  be  characterized  by  the 
passage  of  more  laws — especially  if  trial  and  error  rather 
than  intelligent  statesmanship  be  applied  to  the  problems 
which  will  arise — but,  when  the  rapids  are  passed  and 
quiet  water  is  reached,  the  pilot  will  not  need  to  shout 
orders  at  every  moment.  Let  us  hope  for  the  day  when 
the  economic  order  will  largely  run  itself  as  do  the  diges- 
tive organs  of  a  healthy  man  and  the  state  can  give  its' 
attention  to  the  values  which  make  human  life  significant. 

Having  said  sufficient  in  regard  to  an  objection  based 
on  a  current  misconception  of  socialism,  I  shall  now  pass 
to  "criticisms  involving  an  attack  on  the  fundamental 
principle  of  socialism.  X^There  are  two  main  classes  of 
critics.^There  are,  first,  those  who  believe  that  socialism 
has  too  narrow  a  conception  of  justice,^a  conception 
which  does  not  take  into  consideration  the  indeter- 
minateness  of  social  values.  *The  other  group  of  critics 
assert  that  socialism  so  interprets  its  principle  that  it  for- 
gets the  extra-deserts  due  to  ability.^  Both  these  objections 
force  socialism  to  reflection  upon  its  principle;  it  must 
always  face  the  possibility  that  its  perspective  has  induced 
it  to  take  too  static  and  mathematical  a  view  of  justice 
and  liberty.  The  spirit  in  which  a  principle  is  interpreted 
is  as  significant  as  the  principle  itself,  and  it  may  well 
be  that  the  more  subtle  social  values  are  neglected  by 
those  who  demand  the  enforcement  of  the  letter  of  the 
bond. 

Certain  critics  of  socialism  complain  that  it  does  not 


OBJECTIONS  TO  SOCIALISM  99 

recognize  sufficiently  the  part  played  by  ability  in  produc- 
tion. The  industrial  genius,  assert  these  thinkers,  by 
means  of  his  inventions  and  his  perfecting  of  business 
organization  makes  possible  a  production  many  thousand 
times  greater  than  would  otherwise  have  been  possible. 
Now  the  socialist  has  been  so  dominated  by  hostility  to 
the  employer  that  he  has  forgotten  the  importance  of  this 
qualitative  factor  in  the  industrial  world.  He  has  con- 
fused profit  with  the  actual  earning  capacity  of  the  em- 
ployer, with  his  marginal  utility,  to  use  an  economic  term. 
So  obsessed  has  he  been  by  the  spectre  of  exploitation 
that  he  has  levelled  down  all  the  agents  in  industry  and 
been  led  to  assume  that  they  do  essentially  the  same  sort 
of  work  and  should  get  about  the  same  monetary  reward. 
In  other  words,  just  because  socialism  has  been  pre- 
dominantly a  movement  among  the  manual  workers  and 
those  who  sympathize  with  them  because  of  their  miserable 
condition,  it  has  refused  to  analyze  the  various  factors 
actually  cooperative  in  modern  industry.  Motivated  by 
passion  rather  than  by  reflection,  it  has  been  led  to  take 
an  extreme  position.  This  natural  tendency  has,  more- 
over, been  reenforced  by  the  unfortunate  labor  theory  of 
value  advocated  by  Karl  Marx,  a  theory  never  clearly  and 
unambiguously  stated  and  obviously  lending  itself  to 
a  purely  quantitative  and  dead-level  view  of  production. 
If  the  dictum,  that  a  man  should  get  what  he  earns,  ex- 
presses the  outlook  of  socialism,  then  it  can  be  shown  that 
the  employer  actually  earns  far  in  excess  of  the  ordinary 
laborer,  that  his  utility  is  greater .v  Such,  in  a  general  way, 
is  the  reply  of  the  business  man  trained  in  economics. 
Very  few  anti-socialists,  however,  have  been  as  moder- 
ate in  their  criticisms  of  socialism  as  this.  Mr.  Mallock, 
for  instance,  has  come  forth  as  the  champion  of  the  prin- 


100  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

ciple  that  a  man  produces  that  amount  of  wealth  which 
would  not  have  been  produced  at  all  had  his  efforts  not 
been  made.  The  obvious  objection  to  such  a  proposition 
is  that  modern  industry  is  a  group  affair  intimately  bound 
up  with  social  values  of  all  sorts.  All  efforts  are  neces- 
sarily cooperative  and  it  is  impossible  to  say  that  one  fac- 
tor is  by  itself  responsible  for  all  that  is  produced,  just  be- 
cause it  is  a  necessary  element.  Besides,  production  can- 
not be  separated  from  consumption  and  from  the  whole 
order  of  the  social  state  which  makes  value  possible  and 
which  gives  the  accumulation  of  knowledge  and  achieve- 
ment which  itself  is  the  causal  antecedent  of  new  achieve- 
ment. The  inventor  does  not  work  in  a  vacuum  and  there- 
fore must  be  chary  of  absolute  claims.  The  notion  of 
John  Locke  that  an  individual  has  a  right  to  that  which  he 
has  himself  produced  requires  considerable  qualification 
before  it  can  be  accepted.  In  the  first  place,  the  agency 
of  one  individual  must  be  capable  of  being  completely 
separated  from  that  of  others.  In  the  second  place,  all 
individuals  must  have  the  same  opportunity.  So  under- 
stood, the  ^proposition  only  signifies  that  individuals 
should  be  rewarded  according  to  the  results  of  the  mar- 
riage of  their  effort  and  their  ability.  Now  a  right  im- 
plies a  recognition  by  society  and  a  recognition  must 
have  some  reason  back  of  it;  but  what  can  this  reason 
be  but  a  social  one?  If  it  is  for  the  common  good 
that  individuals  should  receive  that  which  they  produce, 
granted  that  this  can  be  determined,  then  they  will  be 
given  that  right.  Surely,  as  we  have  seen  in  an  earlier 
chapter,  there  is  no  innate  and  absolute  right  to  the 
product  of  effort  and  ability.  But,  if  this  be  the  case,  there 
is  no  need  for  society  to  set  itself  the  impossible  task  of 
trying  to  find  out  what  each  individual  produces.  The 


OBJECTIONS  TO -SOCIALISM-  101 

measure  must  be  social  and  concern  the  use  made  of  the 
reward  and  the  control  which  the  reward  exerts  over  the 
agent's  efforts.  If  an  inventor  obviously  squandered  the 
money  which  he  received  and  injured  his  capacity  to  invent 
in  so  doing  and  would  invent  with  little  return,  it  would  be 
for  the  good  of  society  to  limit  his  royalty  to  this  small 
amount.  But  squandering  is  a  relative  matter;  most  of 
those  whom  society  permits  to  secure  excessive  wealth 
make  an  unsatisfactory  use  of  the  excess  and  thus  direct 
industry  in  channels  which  decrease  the  production  of 
necessaries  and  significant  goods.  We  may  conclude,  then, 
that,  while  ability  does  undoubtedly  increase  production 
and  is  extremely  valuable  socially,  the  actual  development 
and  application  of  the  ability  of  one  individual  cannot  be 
isolated  from  social  conditions  in  the  large  and  that,  were 
such  ^isolation  from  organic  conditions  possible,  it  would 
not  form  the  basis  of  absolute  and  intuitive  rights.  Soci- 
ety inevitably  selects  the  common  good  as  the  standard 
of  rights,  and  the  application  of  this  standard  must  be 
guided  by  the  empirical  reactions  of  individuals,  these 
reactions  being  relative  to  the  character,  first,  of  the  in- 
dividuals taken  distributively,  and,  second,  of  the  ethical 
temper  of  the  age.  The  time  may  come — in  spite  of  what 
our  business  men  say — when  the  average  hard-headed 
employer  may  demand  not  much  more  than  twice  as  much 
as  the  genius  in  science  to  whom  most  of  our  modern  in- 
ventions are  at  least  indirectly  due.  The  social  psychology 
of  pecuniary  reward  has  by  no  means  been  sufficiently 
worked  out.  Society  babied  and  flattered  its  business 
type  during  the  nineteenth  century. 

But  demand  is  itself  a  relative  thing.  The  supply-price 
of  managerial  ability  is  determined  by  conditions  which 
affect  expectation.  Just  as  the  wages  demanded  by  the 


102  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY  . 

average  laborer  is  a  function  of  his  standard  of  living  and 
of  what  he  hopes  he  may  get,  so  the  salary  or  profits  of  the 
employer  is  controlled  in  very  large  measure  by  certain 
customary  expectations.  The  economist  is  just  beginning 
to  realize  the  significance  of  the  psychological  principle  of 
relativity  for  his  field.  If  opportunity  were  made  more 
equal,  the  wages  of  managers  would  undoubtedly  drop 
and  a  series  of  pecuniary  contrasts  at  a  lower  level  and  yet 
equally  stimulating  would  develop.  We  do  not  yet  know 
what  the  supply-price  of  managerial  ability  is,  because  we 
have  not  varied  sufficiently  the  social  conditions  which 
affect  it.  It  may  well  be  that  it  is  little,  if  any,  higher  than 
that  of  skilled  labor.  The  beliefs  of  the  economist  and  of 
the  publicist  have  probably  been  influenced  unconsciously 
by  the  prejudices  of  their  associates  in  the  business  world. 
How  readily  humanity  takes  its  customary  scale  of  re- 
ward as  a  matter  of  divine  right !  A  little  reflection  will,  I 
feel  sure,  convince  the  most  prejudiced  that  there  is  no 
a  priori  correlation  between  any  economic  function  and  a 
definite  position  in  the  scale  of  reward.  The  social  situa- 
tion is  the  fate  which  ultimately  settles  the  temporary 
empirical  correlation. 

These  psychological  and  sociological  reflections  enable 
us  to  formulate  an  adequate  reply  to  the  objection  of  the 
business  man.  The  business  man  has  taken,  as  due  to 
himself,  factors  which  are  impersonal  and  probably  tem- 
porary. The  supply  of  managers  has*  been  limited  by  social 
conditions  such  as  lack  of  education  and  private  control 
of  capital.  Under  present  conditions,  certain  fields  tend 
to  become  the  monopoly  of  established  classes.  Why? 
Because  the  social  organization  is  such  that  these  classes 
can  obtain  control.  A  quotation  from  a  typical  discussion 
of  modern  economics  may  bring  this  principle  more  clearly 


OBJECTIONS  TO  SOCIALISM  103 

before  the  reader.  "To  say  that  the  earnings  of  employers 
are  settled  by  demand  and  supply  is  not  to  demonstrate 
that  it  is  open  to  everybody  who  is  prepared  to  undertake 
the  burden  and  is  capable  of  doing  the  work,  to  make  the 
employer's  income.  It  is  still  necessary  in  almost  all  cir- 
cumstances, that  a  person  should  be  possessed  of  some 
substantial  resources  if  he  is  to  thrust  himself  into  the 
employing  class.  Moreover,  it  is  generally  requisite  that 
he  should  have  received  a  certain  kind  of  training,  and  be 
in  certain  relations  with  particular  sections  of  the  business 
world,  to  enable  him  to  make  a  start  with  fair  prospects  of 
success."1  The  greater  income  of  the  employer  is  due, 
then,  to  conditions  which  are  logically  external  to  the 
foundation  of  rights.  He  has  no  inalienable  right  to  a 
higher  salary  than  the  laborer  he  employs.  If  the  indus- 
trial organization  can  be  modified  in  such  a  way  that  re- 
turns are  more  equitably  divided,  such  a  change  would 
correspond  to  an  increase  in  social  welfare.  It  is  evident 
that  those  economists  who  assert  that  men  get  what  they 
earn  forget  that  the  market  works  within  a  complex  set  of 
institutions  which  are  imperfect. 

We  are  thus  in  a  position  to  assert  that  the  social  wel-  .^ 
fare  is  the  only  foundation  for  any  adequate  theory  of 
distribution.  The  defender  of  the  reward  of  the  capitalist 
really  occupies  the  same  standpoint  as  the  Marxian  whose 
theory  of  value  and  of  distribution  he  condemns.  The 
ideal  is  rather  to  secure  a  distribution  which  will  make  for 
a  healthy  and  sane  society  and  to  make  this  distribution 
as  automatic  as  possible.  Predation  is  primarily  un- 
earned income  and,  as  a  rule,  unearned  income  does  not 
work  for  the  good  of  society.  The  socialist  believes  that 
our  present  institutions  and  practices  encourage  the 
1  Chapman,  "Political  Economy,"  p.  192. 


104  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

appearance  of  a  monopoly  element  because  the  control  of 
our  industrial  life  is  too  much  in  private  hands. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  if  extra-reward  be  offered  to 
ability  it  should  be  because  it  pays  society  to  have  this 
occur.  That  it  does  pay  society  goes  without  saying;  but 
no  set  ratio  of  reward  can  be  deduced  from  this  fact. 
The  problem  of  reward  for  all  activities  becomes  exper- 
imental. The  socialist  believes  that  society  has  not  en- 
couraged a  valid  competition  because  industry  has  not 
been  public.1  The  dice  have  been  loaded  by  the  very 
nature  of  our  characteristic  social  relations.  Society  must 
more  and  more  determine  what  it  wants  and  mould  in- 
stitutions to  serve  its  purposes. 

The  second  objection  to  the  principle  of  socialism  is 
vaguer  in  character  and  reflects  what  we  may  call  class- 
aristocracy.  Socialism,  it  is  said,  does  not  give  the  proper 
foundation  for  values  of  a  delicate  and  fragile  kind.  It  has 
so  narrowed  the  conception  of  justice  that  it  forces  it  into 
conflict  with  aesthetic  values  which  have  their  rootage  in 
social  conditions  which  are  not  founded  on  the  superficial 
justice  which  appeals  to  the  unimaginative.  The  only 
sort  of  justice  which  can  nourish  a  noble  civilization  is  an 
indirect  one,  an  element  of  faith  and  apparently  costly 
experimentation  must  intervene.  A  crude  balance  in  the 
hand  of  justice  is  apt  to  frustrate  that  slow  maturation 
of  art  and  of  its  proper,  personal  soil  which  means  so  much 
for  the  more  significant  aspects  of  life.  Too  great  haste 
to  secure  results,  too  curious  and  critical  an  investigation 
of  the  sources  whence  the  finer  phases  of  uneconomic  pro- 

1  Probably  the  banking  profession  furnishes  the  best  example  of  this 
tendency  toward  lessened  internal  competition.  Let  the  reader  compare 
it  with  the  medical  profession  hi  this  regard.  In  this  latter  we  often  have 
over-competition. 


OBJECTIONS  TO  SOCIALISM  105 

duction  spring  may  dry  up  their  channels.  Culture  and 
art  and  speculation,  say  these  thinkers,  are  delicate  flowers 
which  require  an  atmosphere  and  surroundings  which  a 
democracy  mainly  interested  in  the  exact  distribution  of 
dollars  and  cents  cannot  supply.  A  sort  of  aristocratic 
dolce  far  niente  wedded  to  the  liberty  which  hereditary 
property  makes  possible  maintains  the  psychical  condi- 
tions from  which  an  indirect  reaction  upon  life,  in  terms  of 
art,  may  arise.  The  world  is  too  pressingly  present  to  the 
individual  who  must  struggle  with  life  to  earn  a  livelihood 
for  him  to  gain  perspective.  He  is  so  immersed  in  it  that 
he  cannot  study  it  and  quizzically  play  with  it;  he  is  in- 
timidated and  has  not  the  courage  to  ignore  it,  or  treat  its 
pretences  humorously,  or  use  it  boldly  for  purposes  of  his 
own.  In  short,  the  thesis  of  these  critics  of  socialism  is 
that  of  aristocracy.  Human  life  would  be  shorn  of  its 
significance  if  society  were  composed  only  of  countless 
masses  of  mediocre  individuals  well-fed  and  groomed  and 
jealously  demanding  that  all  should  be  subject  to  the  same 
direct,  economic  control.  Leisure,  freedom,  an  infinite 
variety  of  combinations,  a  certain  irresponsibility  alone 
furnish  the  exotic  and  spacious  soil  in  which  genius  flowers. 
For  all  its  exaggeration,  the  thesis  of  aristocracy  de- 
mands careful  consideration.  A  peasant  democracy  for 
all  its  ethical  robustness  does  not  reach  the  summum  bonum 
of  human  capacity.  And,  if  socialism  necessarily  implied 
the  universalization  of  the  peasant  outlook  on  life,  its 
cautious  elimination  of  chance,  its  monotony,  its  over- 
valuation of  the  tangible,  its  demand  for  immediate  fruits, 
it  might  seem,  to  the  sympathizer  with  the  common  lot, 
the  most  satisfactory  condition  possible  to  man;  while,  to 
the  adventurous  lover  of  the  demonic  and  the  unusual,  of 
subtle  harmonies  and  daring  creations,  it  might  appear  as 


106  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

the  apotheosis  of  an  essentially  unmeaning  villadom.  I 
do  not  wonder  that  those  who  think  of  socialism  as  the 
multiplication  of  fat  contentment,  or  the  reign  of  the  phil- 
istine  in  the  land,  object  to  it  so  vigorously  in  spite  of  the 
obvious  evils  to  which  the  uncontrolled  market  of  to-day 
leads.  Just  because  they  are  really  interested  in  the  serious 
values  of  life  and  are  not  defenders  of  the  status  quo  for 
selfish  reasons,  these  critics  issue  a  challenge  to  socialism 
which  it  must  take  up.  In  a  word,  these  individuals  are 
advocates  of  the  present  order  of  things  because  it  works, 
because  values  find  expression,  because  a  large  number  find 
liberty  and  because  it  furnishes  conditions  fit  for  the  devel- 
opment of  art,  philosophy,  science  and  literature.  While 
they  admit  that  excrescences  exist  which  might  well  be 
eliminated,  that  reforms  of  various  sorts  need  to  be  worked 
out,  they  yet  maintain  that  the  present  institutions  are 
essentially  correct,  that  they  justify  themselves  by  their 
fruits,  and  that  a  hasty  and  superficial  idea  of  justice, 
which  looks  down  rather  than  up,  is  more  apt  to  lower  the 
level  of  civilization  than  to  elevate  it.  The  possession  by 
all  of  caviar  and  autos  is  not  the  end  of  statesmanship. 
Such,  in  a  general  way,  is  the  second  objection  to  the 
principle  of  socialism. 

The  first  thing  which  must  be  done  in  meeting  this  ob- 
jection fairly  is  to  eliminate  the  exaggeration  in  it.  On  the 
economic  side,  our  present  civilization  is  not  so  much 
aristocratic  as  plutocratic.  An  aristocratic  society  is  sup- 
posed to  have  a  sense  of  values  and  to  cherish  those  fea- 
tures of  life  which  cast  a  splendor  of  achievement  over 
humanity.  Suppose  we  grant  this  as  a  defining  concep- 
tion of  aristocracy,  are  we  by  that  fact  compelled  to  admit 
that  such  an  aristocracy  ever  existed?  Must  we  find  its 
realization  in  the  rigid  subordinations  of  the  military 


OBJECTIONS  TO  SOCIALISM  107 

period  when  mere  safety  was  the  chief  good,  when,  as 
Stendhal  remarked,  "  not  to  be  killed  and  to  have  in  winter 
a  good  suit  of  skins  was  for  many  people  the  supreme 
happiness?"  Aristocracy  is  a  very  relative  thing  when 
looked  at  historically.  Aristotle  finds  difficulty  in  his 
.Politics  in  pointing  out  clear  instances  of  it  and  is  there- 
fore much  more  lenient  to  democracy  than  is  Plato.  Cer- 
tain conservatives  look  back  to  the  English  squirearchy 
as  furnishing  an  example  of  this  ideal  control  of  affairs 
by  the  competent  few,  but  those  who  have  read  Fielding 
or  Smollett,  or  have  read  the  accounts  of  the  travels  of  for- 
eigners in  the  England  of  that  day  may  be  allowed  to  have 
their  doubts.  I  am  strongly  inclined  to  believe  that  the 
aristocratic  myth  is  largely  without  historical  foundation. 
But  even  those  who  idealize  the  pseudo-aristocracies 
of  the  past  do  not,  as  a  rule,  claim  that  those  in  control  of 
society  were  the  creators  of  literature,  painting,  sculpture, 
philosophy  and  science.  They  were  simply  the  class  of 
effective  appreciators,  effective  because  of  their  social  and 
financial  status.  In  other  words,  they  were  the  patrons 
who  encouraged  the  poor  artist  or  poet,  gave  leisure  and 
protection  to  the  scholar  and  withheld  the  philosopher 
from  the  ignorant  wrath  of  the  multitude.  Were  these 
values  to  exist — and  without  them  man's  Me  would  be 
bare  indeed — an  effective  demand  was  necessary  and  this 
could  manifest  itself  only  through  a  leisure  class.  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  patronage  and  art  have  so  often  been  re- 
garded as  correlatives.  Now  it  is  to  the  honor  of  the 
princes  and  bankers  of  the  Renaissance  that  they  appre- 
ciated art  to  the  extent  that  they  did.  They  and  the 
Church  have  gained  exceeding  merit  in  the  eyes  of  his- 
torians and  of  the  lovers  of  the  beautiful  because  of  the 
assistance  they  rendered.  But  it  might  not  be  so  edifying 


108  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

if  the  psychological  motives  back  of  this  patronage  were 
laid  bare.  Conspicuous  display  and  rivalry  were  by  no 
means  absent.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  time  is  past  for 
patronage;  for  it  needs  the  existence  of  caste  distinctions 
if  it  is  not  to  wound  the  artist  so  deeply  in  the  depths  of 
his  personality  that  his  mind  and  hand  are  palsied.  Where 
art  and  literature  are  dependent  upon  fashion,  they  have 
no  sure  foundation;  the  Age  of  Queen  Anne  is  succeeded 
by  the  period  of  the  Georges.  The  only  certain  basis  is 
that  which  is  being  gradually  built  up  for  it,  an  educated 
public  in  which  all  phases  of  opinion  and  all  sorts  of  tend- 
encies find  their  echo. 

We  may  conclude,  then,  that  it  is  the  dilettante  and 
not  the  true  artist  who  demands  the  hot-house  sort  of 
existence  and  surroundings  which  the  defender  of  present 
conditions  asserts  to  be  necessary  to  the  development  of  a 
delicate  art.  Great  art  is  simple,  virile  and  profound,  and 
can  flourish  only  when  men  are  in  touch  with  the  verities 
of  life.  And  they  cannot  be  in  touch  with  these  verities  if 
classes  are  isolated  from  one  another  as  they  are  at  present. 
The  spirit  of  this  age  is  not  favorable  to  real  culture  and 
disinterested  inquiry,  because  our  institutions  have  thrown 
us  into  the  maelstrom  of  a  vicious  circle.  Those  who  are 
safe  from  the  worst  eddies  of  the  industrial  whirlpool  yet 
feel  its  fascination  and  effects  in  countless  ways.  Mate- 
rially out  of  it,  they  are  psychologically  subject  to  its 
magnetic  influence.  They  know  that  they  constitute  only 
the  fringe  of  society  yet  they  try  to  convince  themselves 
that  they  are  the  roof  and  crown  of  things.  Possessing 
leisure  without  responsibility,  conspicuousness  without 
essential  merit,  education  without  significant  ideals,  the 
limited  class  which  chance  and  one-time  fitness  for  the 
economic  struggle  as  it  was  staged  has  made  our  aristocracy 


OBJECTIONS  TO  SOCIALISM  109 

function  with  the  selfish  incompetency  which  is  to  be  ex- 
pected. How  can  art  surge  out  of  these  disheartening 
jealousies,  isolations,  poverties  and  smug  superfluities? 
It  is  at  present  so  largely  a  symbol  of  class^diffejcejice&^ 
it  is  in  one  group  with  a  trip  to  Europe,  a  summer  cottage 
and  a  touring-car.  The  ethical  materialism  of  the  present 
rests  on  the  existence  of  unethical  distinctions  in  our  social 
institutions  which  condemn  large  numbers  to  a  life  of 
unremitting  struggle  while  a  favored  class  have  a  control 
which  their  general  mental  capacity  does  not  warrant. 
How  can  a  sweet  and  sane  and  penetrative  art  arise  in 
such  an  atmosphere?  The  tradition  of  a  technique  fitted 
for  other  times  can  be  transmitted  through  the  medium 
of  an  artificial  culture  but  the  spirit  which  will  blow  into 
it  the  breath  of  life  is  absent. 

But  it  would  be  false  to  the  facts  to  draw  too  pessimistic 
a  picture  of  the  intellectual  and  artistic  life  of  the  present. 
To  do  so  would  be  to  drop  into  the  onesidedness  of  devotees 
of  medieval  art.  Human  nature  is  too  complex  and  is 
gifted  with  too  many  interests  to  be  completely  dominated 
by  any  one  aspect  of  life.  Some  men  are  born  artists  just 
as  others  are  naturally  scientists  and  business  organizers 
and  philosophers.  Thus  there  are  many  strands  of  tradi- 
tion which  allure  their  chosen  and  lead  them  from  the  mart 
to  more  silent  places.  No  one  tendency  in  society — no 
matter  how  blatant  and  omnipresent — can  bend  all  minds 
to  do  it  homage.  Human  nature  reacts  selectively  and, 
where  personality  has  the  freedom  that  it  has  to-day,  we 
should  expect  groups  to  stand  out  against  the  cruder  and 
shallower  things  of  life.  There  are  large  numbers  in  society 
to-day  who  have  only  themselves  to  blame  if  they  have 
led  superficial  lives.  The  socialist  must  not  make  the  mis- 
take of  over-estimating  the  value  of  external  goods.  A  cer- 


110  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

tain  amount  of  income  and  of  leisure  is  necessary  to  a  de- 
veloped life,  but  this  minimum  is  soon  reached.  Changes 
in  the  industrial  system  which  would  give  the  mass  more 
leisure  and  a  healthier  standard  of  living  would  not  of 
themselves  do  more  than  raise  what  the  statistician  calls 
the  mode.  Achievement  of  a  high  grade  would  not  in- 
evitably follow.  That  would  depend  upon  the  spirit 
which  developed  in  such  a  society.  He  who  naively  thinks 
that  New  York  can  be  made  an  Athens  by  destroying  the 
Bowery  and  the  East  Side  has  indeed  a  mechanical  view 
of  life.  It  is  as  absurd  to  expect  a  millennium  when  the 
poor  are  better  off  as  to  look  for  Kansas  to  produce  a 
Goethe  or  Hegel  as  soon  as  the  farmers  pay  their  mort- 
gages. The  socialist  must  not  lose  balance  and  drop  into 
the  customary  classification  of  society  into  sheep  and  goats, 
the  rich  and  the  poor.  But  these  cautions  against  the 
romantic  side  of  socialism  are  no  justification  of  injustice. 

Looking  at  things  in  the  large,  then,  we  may  conclude 
that  the  aristocratic  thesis  commits  a  double  fallacy. 
It  looks  backward  rather  than  forward  and  forgets  that 
society  has  outgrown  the  caste  attitude  which  made 
benevolent  patronage  a  condition  of  artistic  achievement. 
In  the  second  place,  it  is  short-sighted  and  is  unable  to 
realize  that  processes  are  as  important  as  results.  It  may 
take  time  to  build  a  healthy  foundation  for  society,  and 
much  bungling  and  inefficiency  may  intervene,  but  the 
result  in  the  long  run  will  far  exceed  what  could  be  accom- 
plished on  a  more  artificial  basis.  It  is  easy  for  an  isolated 
portion  of  society  which  has  obvious  privileges  to  over- 
estimate its  own  importance,  to  forget  that  legal  status 
does  not  always  coincide  with  actual  function. 

In  spite  of  its  exaggeration  and  of  its  evidently  faulty 
localization  of  the  creative  elements  of  modern  society, 


OBJECTIONS  TO  SOCIALISM  111 

the  aristocratic  thesis  serves  as  a  counterbalance  to  the 
almost  equally  erroneous  idealization  of  the  mass  of  the 
manual  workers  so  frequently  found  among  romantic 
socialists.  Because  the  social  organization  has  been  such 
that  the  working-classes,  so  called,  have  not  had  a  square 
deal,  it  does  not  follow  that  they  are  the  seat  of  all  the 
virtues  and  capacities  and  that  the  thrusting  of  power  into 
their  hands  will  lead  to  a  millennium.  There  is  no  good 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  average  of  ability  is  as  high  in 
the  economically-submerged  classes  as  in  those  which  have 
been  more  successful;  while  there  has  been  much  nonsense 
in  the  adoration  of  blue  blood,  it  is  probably  true  that  the 
middle  class  at  least  has  selected  the  more  energetic  of 
those  below  as  recruits.  We  know  too  little  of  the  laws  of 
heredity  and  of  variation  to  make  any  definite  statements 
as  to  the  distribution  of  ability,  but  we  can  at  least  affirm 
that  there  is  no  good  reason  to  assert  that  potential  ability 
is  exceptionally  high  in  the  proletariat.  But  raw  ability 
is,  itself,  insufficient  to  found  a  renewal  of  civic  life  upon. 
Social  habits  and  traditions,  recognized  standards,  wide 
experience,  training,  all  these  are  necessary  to  intelligent 
action.  Now  a  sort  of  social  heredity  is  the  pre-requisite 
of  the  effective  presence  of  certain  values  and  interests 
and  this  heredity  cannot  be  created  offhand  hi  an  eman- 
cipated class,  nor  can  it  be  injected  from  outside;  it  must 
grow  up  slowly  as  the  result  of  the  operation  of  new  stimuli 
and  wider  opportunities.  The  revolutionary  transference 
of  political  and  economic  power  to  those  who  have  had  lit- 
tle chance  to  find  themselves,  in  that  subtle  and  complex 
life  which  we  call  civilization,  would  probably  lead  to  the 
rise  of  a  sort  of  vandalism — at  least  to  the  enthronement 
of  philistinism.  But  it  is  only  against  the  romantic  school 
of  democracy  that  the  aristocratic  thesis  has  its  truth. 


112  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

So  far,  then,  as  modern  socialism  is  evolutionary,  it 
stands  for  the  hastening  of  a  process  which  has  both  ethics 
and  aesthetics  in  its  favor.  It  works  for  the  extension  of 
opportunity  to  all  and  the  re^moyaLot  special  privileges, 
from,  the  jew,  and  this  out  of  conviction  that  the  free  cir- 
culation of  ideas  and  ideals  increases  their  strength  and 
number.  Community  feeling  and  living,  social  respon- 
sibility and  an  almost  universal  acknowledgement  of  the 
things  which  are  worth  while  furnish  an  environment  in 
which  noble  and  significant  lives  will  be  far  less  infrequent 
than  they  are  to-day.  Such  an  enlightened  democracy 
has  its  conditions  and  it  is  one  of  the  chief  aims  of  socialism 
to  further  these  without  losing  sight  of  the  fact  that  they 
are  means.  Until  the  defender  of  privilege  can  prove  that 
the  radical  extension  of  leisure  and  education  will  bring 
in  its  wake  a  shallow  and  facile  epicureanism  which  will 
crowd  out  all  serious  values,  his  objection  to  socialism  can- 
not be  regarded  as  valid.  There  is  in  socialism  an  element 
of  the  "will  to  believe,"  of 'a  faith  in  the  decisions  of  the 
multitude,  of  belief  in  the  reach  and  effectiveness  of 
cooperative  planning,  of  hopeful  acquiescence  in  the 
guidance  exercised  by  an  educated  public  opinion.  Hence, 
socialism  is  in  large  measure  prophetic  and  beckons  a 
people  to  social  creation.  And  shall  we  be  proud  to  pro- 
claim that  we  have  no  vision  and  no  yearning  to  create  col- 
lectively? The  inertia  of  society  is  the  cause  of  most  of  its 
evils,  for  there  are  few  wrongs  which  we  have  not  the  power 
to  right  if  only  we  had  the  unified  will  to  grapple  with  them. 

The  obstacles  in  the  path  of  cooperation  are,  then, 
psychical  rather  than  physical  in  character.  What  we 
must  wait  for  is  the  gradual  birth  of  a  spirit  of  social  crea- 
tion, a  spirit  which  will  be  born  out  of  the  untiring  effort 
of  kindly  and  reflective  men  and  women  to  ameliorate  in- 


OBJECTIONS  TO  SOCIALISM  113 

dustrial  conditions  and  to  uplift  the  general  temper  of  the 
age.  Such  a  spirit  meeting  half-way  a  movement  among 
the  manual  workers  to  assert  their  manhood  in  their  rela- 
tions to  their  employers  would  surely  lead  quickly  to  some- 
thing of  the  nature  of  real  co-partnership  and  cooperation. 

But  we  must  never  forget  that  a  valid  cooperation  must 
rest  upon  the  moral  and  mental  integrity  of  the  citizens. 
Increasing  education,  accepted  responsibility  and  the 
pervasive  influence  of  social  feelings  furnish  the  only  foun- 
dation upon  which  an  industrial  democracy  may  base 
itself.  Let  not  this  fact,  basic  as  it  is,  intimidate  us,  how- 
ever, for  the  stature  of  freedom  comes  only  to  those  who 
have  accepted  the  responsibilities  and  penalties  of  freedom. 
It  is  this  principle  of  a  sound  psychology  which  the  true 
democrat  must  appeal  to  as  his  final  answer  to  the  objec- 
tions of  the  conservative.  And  I  speak  from  my  own  ex- 
perience when  I  say  that  I  know  of  nothing  more  deaden- 
ing than  a  petty  bureaucracy  resting  upon  the  economic 
dependence  of  those  it  rules.  There  will,  however,  be  no 
spiritual  magic  in  terms  and  rules.  The  ultimate  salvation 
of  a  people  will  be  spiritual,  intellectual,  volitional.  It  is 
this  soul  of  a  people  which  creates  its  institutions,  choosing 
those  which  best  express  and  forward  its  aspirations.  And 
if  we,  as  a  people,  desire  this  spiritual  unity  which  has  in  it 
the  creative  power  to  make  democracy  more  than  a  cum- 
bersome political  form,  we  cannot  remain  divided  into 
masters  and  men,  controllers  and  controlled,  the  haves  and 
the  have-nots,  the  dependent  and  the  independent.  Our 
future  will  be  determined  by  our  solution  of  the  economic 
question;  but  this  solution  will  express  our  spiritual 
quality  and  our  intelligence. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  a  consideration  of  some  of  the  prac- 
tical difficulties  which  have  been  urged  against  socialism. 


CHAPTER  VI 
OBJECTIONS  AND  TENDENCIES 

APART  from  a  similar  attitude  towards  socialism  itself, 
it  is  impossible  to  treat  objections  to  socialism  in  the  crit- 
ical and  realistic  spirit  in  which  they  should  be  treated. 
Were  we  defending  some  Utopian  form  of  socialism  or 
some  hard-and-fast  collectivism  looked  upon  as  a  ready- 
made  panacea,  this  spirit  of  approach  would  be  psycho- 
logically impossible.  He  who  is  on  the  defensive  and  has 
bound  up  his  mental  integrity  with  some  fixed  scheme  can 
never  be  fair  in  his  reception  of  objections  and  suggestions. 
Above  all  things  we  have  wished  to  escape  from  the  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual  dangers  of  any  such  hardened 
orthodoxy  and  to  keep  ourselves  plastic  by  a  stress  upon 
the  purpose  of  socialism  rather  than  upon  some  dogmatic 
and  over-simplified  plan.  We  have  admitted  all  along 
that  the  advocates  of  socialism  have  been  partly  respon- 
sible for  the  lack  of  receptive  interest,  on  the  part  of  the 
general  public,  of  which  they  complain.  Socialism  has 
too  often  been  a  counsel  of  perfection;  it  has  thought  to 
achieve  finality  in  social  affairs  suddenly  and  dramatically. 
Consequently,  it  has  over-valued  forms  and  formulae  at 
the  expense  of  the  spirit  which  is  alone  creative.  In  the 
following  discussion  of  current  objections  to  socialism,  we 
shall,  therefore,  feel  ourselves  bound  only  by  our  allegiance 
to  the  purpose  of  advancing  social  welfare  and  community 
achievement  and  by  that  belief  in  the  principle  of  coopera- 
tion which  we  have  advocated  in  these  pages. 

If  objections  really  point  out  a  genuine  difficulty  and  are 

114 


OBJECTIONS  AND  TENDENCIES  115 

motivated  by  the  desire  to  indicate  mis-apprehensions 
and  inadequacies,  they  should  be  of  the  greatest  service 
to  a  growing  movement  which  is  dominated  by  a  purpose 
rather  than  by  a  set  of  watchwords.  Unfortunately,  most 
of  the  current  objections  to  socialism  are  guilty  of  the  same 
assumptions  as  the  older  forms  of  socialism  themselves. 
They  are,  in  short,  ungenetic  and  academic  in  the  worst 
sense  of  that  term.  Until  he  becomes  accustomed  to  it, 
the  thinker  is  surprised  by  the  scholastic  character  of  the 
reasoning  of  the  average  practical  man.  It  is  full  of 
assumptions  which  have  not  been  analyzed  out  and  sub- 
jected to  a  searching  scrutiny.  In  other  words,  his  objec- 
tions reflect  the  stability  and  definite  organization  of  the 
economic  arrangements  in  which  he  lives  and  works  and 
has  his  being.  He  speaks  as  these  institutions  would 
speak  had  they  a  voice. 

In  many  ways,  the  assumptions  back  of  current  objec- 
tions to  socialism  are  more  significant  than  the  explicit 
objections  themselves  and  therefore  more  suggestive  to 
the  non-partisan  thinker.  Indirectly  at  least,  I  hope  to 
make  it  fairly  clear  that  they  reflect  a  clash  of  values,  of 
aspirations,  of  possibilities.  There  is  no  Q.  E.  D.  in  this 
field  because  we  are  not  dealing  with  a  field  independent 
of  man's  purposes  and  desires.  We  shall,  as  a  consequence, 
frequently  content  ourselves  with  showing  that  an  objec- 
tion is  not  in  touch  with  the  spirit  of  the  actual  movement 
of  society.  That  and  that  alone  is,  in  the  last  analysis, 
its  sufficient  refutation.  It  is  life  which  ultimately  refutes 
or  confirms  social  doctrines;  and  life  is  a  very  large  and 
massive  thing  which  is  unintimidated  by  those  in  authority 
be  they  kings,  ex-presidents,  noted  business  men  or  con- 
servative professors  of  political  economy.  The  stream 
of  social  life  is  creative  and  constructive  and  presses  on- 


116  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

ward  like  the  natural  process  it  is,  while  those  minds  which 
have  no  vision  for  the  flow  of  things  see  only  those  social 
institutions  and  usages  which  are  as  yet  undissolved  by 
the  current  no  matter  how  undermined  they  may  actually 
be.  The  conservative  has  a  morphological  mind,  he  notes 
structures  which  have  hardened  into  definite  form;  the 
social  thinker  should  have  a  genetic  mind,  one  which  sees 
the  silent  working  of  those  forces  and  tendencies  which  are 
beginning  to  remould  the  old  structures. 

What  I  wish  to  do  in  the  following  pages  is  to  bring  out 
as  clearly  as  possible  the  effect  of  this  genetic  standpoint 
on  the  customary  objections  to  socialism.  It  will  be  ev- 
ident that  I  defend  the  spirit  of  socialism  instead  of  the 
letter  of  particular  socialisms.  In  doing  so,  it  may  even  be 
that  I  can  point  to  the  actual  working  of  this  spirit  in  cer- 
tain experiments  and  tendencies  in  contemporary  society. 

Many  traditional  objections  are  relevant  only  to  rev- 
olutionary socialism  and  we  can  therefore  practically 
ignore  them.  The  catastrophic  view  of  social  change 
present  at  certain  times  in  Marx  conceived  the  establish- 
ment of  socialism  as  "an  affair  of  twenty-four  lively  hours, 
with  Individualism  in  full  swing  on  Monday  morning,  a 
tidal  wave  of  the  insurgent  proletariat  on  Monday  after- 
noon and  Socialism  in  complete  working  order  on  Tues- 
day." We  have  seen  that  this  melodramatic  view  must  be 
firmly  repudiated.  Social  changes  cannot  be  inaugurated 
like  political  changes  because  they  are  not  so  external.  The ' 
problems  involved  are  more  difficult  and  their  solutions  are 
of  the  nature  of  experimental  growths  which  take  time  to 
mature.  Political  institutions  rest  upon  economic  and 
social  institutions  and  are  relatively  superficial  when  com- 
pared with  these.  We  can,  therefore,  leave  to  one  side  the 
objections  to  socialism  which  are  aimed  at  the  violence  and 


OBJECTIONS  AND  TENDENCIES  117 

anarchy  supposedly  connected  with  it.  There  may  be 
very  bitter  feelings  at  certain  stages  in  the  passage  to  a 
juster  society,  but  a  cataclysm  is  unlikely  and  is  certainly 
unnecessary.  When  all  is  said,  there  are  worse  things  for 
society  than  discontent  and  the  energy,  destructive  and 
constructive,  which  it  discharges  upon  smug  routine. 

"Is  the  capitalist  to  be  expropriated  without  indemnity, 
or  to  be  offered  compensation?"  This  is  a  typical  anti- 
socialist  dilemma.  But,  like  most  dilemmas,  it  does  not 
contain  an  exhaustive  disjunction.  The  process  of  social- 
ization will  proceed  in  such  a  way  as  to  retain  the  capital 
needed  while  changing  its  ownership  with  the  minimum 
of  hardship.  Hence  the  method  employed  is  the  important 
feature  of  the  advance  of  socialism.  Let  us  take  a  con- 
crete example  to  make  this  rejection  of  the  dilemma  clear. 

Were  the  government  to  purchase  the  telegraph,  tel- 
ephone and  railroad  lines,  how  would  it  finance  the 
operation?  Probably  by  a  sale  of  bonds  at  a  competitive 
rate  of  interest  and,  let  us  hope,  so  far  as  possible  at  low 
denominations  so  that  many  could  invest.  But  this  is  not 
socialism !  Except  so  far  as  it  represents  a  change  of  atti- 
tude towards  social  enterprise.  There  are  many  reasons 
to  believe  that  such  a  national  control  and  direction  of  the 
railroads  with  the  definite  emphasis  on  the  welfare  of 
society  in  place  of  profits  would  simplify  the  problems  of 
transportation  and  management.  The  purpose  would  be 
clarified  and  disentangled  from  adventitious  interests. 
And  every  possible  simplification  in  the  complexities  of 
industry  is  an  advantage.  But  it  may  be  objected  that 
this  change  is  on  the  financial  side  only  the  substitution  of 
a  large  number  of  owners  for  the  few  who  own  to-day. 
Now  socialism  does  not  look  upon  the  continued  payment 
of  interest  by  an  industry  as  the  ideal  because  such  pay- 


118  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

ment  means  a  tax  on  the  country  as  a  whole.  How,  then, 
could  this  debt  be  paid?  In  at  least  two  ways.  By  means 
of  a  sinking  fund  used  to  buy  up  the  indebtedness  and  ob- 
tained as  a  profit  on  the  operation  of  the  plant;  and  by 
means  of  a  progressive  tax  on  those  incomes  and  inher- 
itances which  exceed  a  certain  minimum.  I  cannot  con- 
ceive of  the  advent  of  socialism  without  a  redistribution 
of  wealth  through  a  changed  policy  in  taxation,1  a  policy 
which  would,  of  course,  be  inaugurated  gradually  and 
applied  sensibly — the  task  of  experts  and  statesmen.  The 
difficulties  to  be  confronted  are,  in  the  main,  technical  and, 
since  other  countries  have  begun  nationalization,  cannot 
be  regarded  as  particularly  intimidating.  What  is  needed 
is  the  will  to  do  things  in  a  group  way  rather  than  in  an 
individualistic  and  factional  way. 

Another  problem  frequently  raised  by  critics  is  this: 
Must  all  industry  be  nationalized,  or  are  there  to  be  dif- 
ferent units  of  socialization  co-existing?  The  older  cen- 
tralized collectivism  which  is  usually  retained  as  an  object 
of  attack  by  controversialists  stood  for  complete  national- 
ization. Here,  again,  we  meet  that  over-simplification 
characteristic  of  early  rationalism,  the  desire  to  find  some 
all-inclusive  pattern  or  rule.  Genetic  views  have  changed 
all  that  and  have  given  new  significance  to  variety.  Out 
of  variety  will  come  growth  and  the  fruitful  suggestion 
which  leads  to  growth.  The  flow  of  tendencies  in  each 
society  must  be  considered.  In  a  country  like  England 
where  the  cooperative  stores  have  secured  such  a  hold 
these  will  in  all  likelihood  be  extended  and,  as  income  be- 
comes more  equalized,  these  stores  will  become  in  fact,  if 
not  in  name,  municipalized.  And  I  see  no  reason  why 

1  There  are  signs  that  our  system  of  taxation  is  to  be  overhauled  and  its 
incidence  made  more  just.  Such  reform  is  in  harmony  with  socialism. 


OBJECTIONS  AND  TENDENCIES  119 

competition  should  not  remain  open  to  counteract  any 
stagnation  which  might  otherwise  set  in.  The  socialist 
must  admit  that  no  one  can  be  quite  certain  as  yet  of  the 
part  played  by  advertisement  and  the  multiplication  of 
shops.  Where  standardization  is  easy  there  socialization 
is  easy. 

The  principle  and  spirit  of  cooperation  may  easily  find 
expression  in  various  ways  whose  value  and  limits  will  be 
tested  by  actual  practice.  The  political  units  will  always 
have  the  function  of  control  and  of  a  general  supervision 
which  will  advance  organization  and  the  elimination  of 
those  private  interests  which  hamper  the  best  social  in- 
terests. How  much  good  would  come  in  this  country  from 
a  more  jealous  concern  for  the  interest  of  the  community 
and  from  the  reversal  of  the  assumption  that  private  in- 
terests and  rights  precede  public  interests  and  rights !  Be- 
sides this  general  function  of  vigilant  control,  the  state 
would  find  it  advantageous  to  the  public  first  to  regulate 
and  then  to  take  over  the  forests,  the  water-ways,  the 
water-power,  the  mineraf~resources,  all  of  which  lend 
themselves  to  abuse  when  left  in  private  hands.  The 
nation,  again,  would  be  justified  in  owning  and  run- 
ning the  means  of  communication  and  of  transportation. 
That  such  a  unified  organization  of  the  means  of  trans- 
portation would  lead  to  an  immense  saving  few  can 
doubt.  Moreover,  the  system  could  be  forged  into  an 
instrument  for  the  economic  development  of  the  entire 
country  since  planning  would  be  more  possible.  Ger- 
many, Italy,  Switzerland  and  Belgium  have  something 
to  teach  us  in  this  regard.  There  are  national  sins  of 
omission  as  well  as  sins  of  commission  and  our  present 
political  democracy  must  not  forget  this  ethical  fact. 
A  nation  can  be  good  negatively  but  it  is  nobler  to  be 


120  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

good  positively.  It  is  time  to  lose  our  strange  timidity 
in  community  effort. 

How  far  the  political  units  will  embark  upon  industrial 
enterprise  depends  in  large  measure  upon  whether  indirect 
control  and  guidance  does  or  does  not  work  successfully, 
that  is,  in  accordance  with  our  changing  ideals.  The 
peculiar  genius  of  a  people  will  play  some  part  in  deciding 
this  question;  hence  it  is  impossible  to  make  predictions 
of  a  dogmatic  sort.  What  the  anti-socialist  affects  to  fear 
is  the  appearance  of  officialism.  If  this  appears,  it  must  be 
met  and  corrected  by  making  the  work  of  officials  less 
negative  and  formal,  by  giving  them  a  freer  hand  and  more 
responsibility.  Socialism  must,  of  course,  hunt  out  and 
destroy  all  remnants  of  the  spoils  system.  The  proper 
relation  between  the  expert  and  the  few,  responsible, 
elected  officials  must  be  worked  out  in  practice.  Political 
science  is  studying  this  problem.  Inefficiency  is  a  disease 
which  has  a  remedy,  and  both  the  disease  and  the  remedy 
are  psychological.  If  the  social  spirit  comes  to  the  front, 
state  enterprise  has  much  in  its  favor.  I  can,  in  other 
words,  see  no  necessary  connection  between  governmental 
activity  and  bureaucracy.  The  merely  police  function 
of  OUT  government  has  hampered  our  officials,  and  com- 
bined with  this  has  been  a  lack  of  freedom.  But,  in 
spite  of  all  that  may  be  said,  I  have  far  more  faith  in  the 
capacity  of  many  of  our  public  services  which  have  been 
freed  from  the  spoils  system  than  in  much  of  private  enter- 
prise. 

Let  us  apply  these  conclusions  to  the  municipality. 
Municipal  socialism  has  its  natural  sphere  in  the  field  of 
local  monopolies.  The  problem,  here,  is  essentially  one  of 
method.  Is  it  best  to  own  or  to  control  indirectly  by 
means  of  provisions  in  the  charter?  When  a  city  has 


OBJECTIONS  AND  TENDENCIES  121 

reached  a  certain  level  of  civic  conscience,  ownership  is 
undoubtedly  better  than  ingenious  charters  because  the 
total  control  is  direct  and  the  responsibility  is  not  divided. 
But  the  department  of  public  works  must  be  taken  out  of 
politics  and  civil  service  with  experts  introduced.  I  refuse 
to  think  so  lowly  of  democracy  as  to  believe  that  this  can- 
not be  done  even  now.  Political  reforms  adapted  to  root 
out  bad  customs  and  the  personal  use  of  public  position 
and  power  must  accompany  the  introduction  of  municipal 
enterprise  in  order  to  decrease  the  possibility  of  those 
scandals  which  induce  pessimism  and  lethargy  in  so  many 
good  citizens.  It  is  needless  to  point  out  that  the  spirit 
of  private  profit  which  has  been  so  lauded  by  individualists 
is  the  chief  cause  of  those  habits  and  practices  of  which 
Americans  are  ashamed.  We  must  cease  worshipping 
Democracy  with  a  capital  D  while  refusing  to  analyze 
the  actual  behavior  of  a  clumsy  democracy  which  has  little 
group  spirit.  A  study  of  European  cities  at  work  should  be 
an  inspiration  to  the  best  citizens  of  our  corporation- 
ridden  municipalities.  It  may  be  that  they  will  dimly 
see  that  it  is  the  spirit  which  rules  their  business  life 
that  displays  its  presence  in  these  incapacities  which 
they  proclaim  almost  with  unction.  City-planning,  rec- 
reation centers,  spacious  parks,  public  amusements,  city- 
extensions,  not  controlled  by  real-estate  men  but  by  the 
city  itself,  enlightened  supervision  of  building  would  be 
priceless  improvements  on  the  way  to  a  sane  and  healthy 
democracy  and  away  from  that  let-alone-ism  and  private 
interest  which  has  been  the  bane  of  American  life.  There 
will,  I  take  it,  soon  be  an  advance  all  along  the  line  in  our 
municipalities  and  this  advance  will  accompany  and  be 
partly  the  result  of  civic  enterprise.  Before  long,  American 
cities  will  surprise  themselves  by  discovering  what  they 


122  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

can  do.  Then  their  interest  will  be  aroused  and  the  only 
danger  will  be  that  they  will  go  beyond  their  depth  like 
swimmers  who  have  first  tasted  of  the  joy  of  free  and  vital 
movements. 

Along  with  this  advance  in  collective  enterprise  will 
undoubtedly  go  a  softening  of  that  spirit  of  autocracy 
which  has  been  one  of  the  most  palpable  blemishes  of  our 
ethos.  The  belief  that  a  man  had  the  absolute  right  to  do 
what  he  would  with  his  own  showed  no  suspicion  of  the 
social  side  of  the  institution  of  property.  Property  was 
taken  as  a  right  which  had  no  social  purpose  back  of  it. 
The  propertyless  man  thus  became  simply  a  "hand"  who 
had  no  rights  in  those  enterprises  in  which  he  spent  his 
life.  It  is  against  this  situation  in  law  and  social  custom 
that  socialism  rebels  just  as  much  as  against  the  mal- 
distribution of  the  national  income.  Such  a  system  of 
social  relations  when  combined,  as  it  naturally  was,  with 
the  materialism  which  reckons  individuals  in  terms  of 
what  they  have  rather  than  of  what  they  are  inevitably 
generated  an  atmosphere  of  autocracy  of  a  peculiarly  dis- 
agreeable kind.  Something  of  the  spirit  and  the  measures 
of  co-partnership  and  profit-sharing — industrial  reforms 
which  we  shall  discuss  soon — must  enter  into  the  factory 
if  this  glaring  insult  to  democratic  ideals  is  to  be  removed. 
It  is  a  mistake  to  identify  the  socialist  movement  with 
concern  only  for  the  monetary  side  of  existence;  it  is  con- 
cerned even  more  with  the  increase  of  more  humane  indus- 
trial relations  and  the  development  of  industrial  rights 
correspondent  to  the  property  rights  so  strongly  em- 
phasized and  guarded  during  the  eighteenth  and  nine- 
teenth centuries. 

What  I  shall  say,  then,  in  answer  to  objections  will  pre- 
suppose the  growth  of  this  new  ethos  and  will  assume  a 


OBJECTIONS  AND  TENDENCIES  123 

growth  all  along  the  line,  educational,  political  and  ethical. 
And  it  is  incontestable  that  ideas  are  determinants  of  such 
a  growth.  Let  me  illustrate  what  I  mean.  When  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Manchester  school  of  economists  and  pub- 
licists was  at  its  height  in  England  and  the  Continent, 
many  cities  sold  the  public  land  they  had  and  passed  to 
the  policy  that  all  property  so  far  as  possible  should  be 
private  property — a  view  which  has  likewise  controlled 
American  policy.  After  a  few  decades  this  dogma  began 
to  be  questioned  and  there  was  a  gradual  return  to  public 
ownership  and  control,  a  tendency  which  is  being  accel- 
erated. Thus  the  ideas  which  dominate  and  which  are 
pervasive  influence  the  practice  of  a  people.  They  make 
easier  the  growth  and  working  of  institutions  in  accord 
with  them.  Americans  need  a  bath  of  cooperative  ideas 
with  the  suggestions  to  group  action  that  they  carry. 

The  chief  objection  to  government  ownership  arid  man- 
agement of  large  industrial  undertakings,  such  as  the  rail- 
roads, seems  to  concern  the  mode  of  selection  of  the  man- 
agers. Are  these  to  be  elected  by  the  people  at  large  in  a 
political  fashion,  or  are  they  to  be  appointed  by  elected 
officials,  or  are  they  to  be  selected  by  the  workmen?  We 
need  not  consider  this  problem  as  one  applying  to  ah1  the 
economic  activities  of  a  nation  at  once.  The  change  to 
public  enterprise  will  be  gradual  and  experimental.  But 
in  the  case  of  those  activities  taken  over,  the  procedure 
may  be  as  follows.  The  railroads,  for  example,  will  be 
taken  charge  of  by  a  public  department  and  will  in  this 
way  be  under  indirect  popular  control.  The  managers 
will  undoubtedly  be  experts  whose  conduct  will  be  tested 
by  results.  But  socialism  advocates  that  there  go  along 
with  this  an  increased  consultation  with  the  workmen,  in 
this  way  leading  to  the  disappearance  of  that  autocratic 


124  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

attitude  which  is  otherwise  apt  to  linger  behind.  The 
spirit  of  community  effort  must  be  introduced  so  that  the 
laborers  may  feel  themselves  a  living  and  considered  part 
of  economic  activity.  The  tendency  of  the  age  would 
thus  be  to  a  practical  combination  of -xesponsible  officials, 
experts  and  cooperating  workmen.  Of  one  thing  we  can 
be  sure;  the  long  ballot  type  of  political  democracy  will 
not  be  applied  to  public  enterprises.  Reforms  in  the  polit- 
ical machinery  of  democracy  which  are  even  now  being 
successfully  agitated  will  supervene  and  will  combine 
expertness  with  fixed  responsibility.  And  there  will  be 
less  jealousy  of  the  expert,  when  the  old  personal  idea  of 
office-holding  has  been  replaced  by  ideals  of  public  service 
and  public  efficiency.  Democracy  will  surely  not  defeat 
itself  by  adherence  to  an  unworkable  system.  The  pur- 
pose of  democracy  is  a  general  social  control  of  the  condi- 
tions of  life  rather  than  any  traditional  right  to  vote  for 
every  holder  of  office. 

I  would  suggest,  then,  that  society  will  work  out  some- 
thing of  the  nature  of  co-partnership  in  which  the  general 
public,  the  consumers,  will  retain  a  supervisory  control  as 
representing  the  interests  of  society  at  large,  while  the 
.workers  in  that  field *will  have  a  voice  especially  strong  in 
matters  of  practical  detail.  Here,  again,  the  socialist  is 
confronted  by  his  critics  with  a  false  dilemma.  It  is  not  a 
case  of  this  or  that  but  a  case  of  this  and  that. 

Another  point  which  is  frequently  raised  as  deadly  to 
socialism  is  the  assignment  of  the  working-force  to  its 
posts.  "The  naive  hope  that  inferior  men  will  recognize 
their  inferiority  and  volunteer  to  do  the  lower  tasks  is  a 
remnant  of  Utopian  fantasy;  were  it  true  that  the  men  of 
the  western  world  are  prone  to  think  their  fortunes  equal 
to  their  deserts,  the  socialist  movement  would  lose  nine- 


OBJECTIONS  AND  TENDENCIES  125 

tenths  of  its  recruits."1  To  this  we  reply  that  the  selection 
of  men  must  be  impersonal  and  made  so  far  as  possible  by 
the  work.  But  let  us  look  at  this  objection  a  little  more 
closely. 

All  intelligent  socialists  reject  the  notion  of  a  semi- 
military  assignment  of  posts  and  this  scheme  is  to  be  found 
only  in  the  conventional  controversies  which  rage  peren- 
nially. The  distribution  of  function  and  wage  must  be 
essentially  impersonal  and  so  far  as  possible  automatic, 
and  all  impersonal  modes  to  be  efficient  must  contain  the 
principle  of  competition.  This  will  be,  however,  a  com- 
petition of  a  social  character,  a  competition  to  determine 
relative  efficiency  rather  than  a  competition  for  a  job. 
Social  institutions,  such  as  educational  institutions,  must 
help  in  this  necessary  work  of  selection  of  the  right  sort  of 
work  for  different  individuals.  The  so-called  Monarchical 
Socialism  of  Germany  has  done  not  a  little  in  this  direction 
for  the  trades.  Applied  psychology  will  probably  have 
work  to  do  along  this  line,  as  will  also  the  teachers  in  vari- 
ous sorts  of  continuation  schools.  In  other  words,  society 
must  develop  methods  to  increase  the  internal  mobility 
of  its  members.  The  more  the  unjust  friction  in  society 
which  gives  groups,  or  classes,  a  strength  and  control  which 
their  capacity  does  not  warrant  is  removed,  the  more  will 
the  individual  be  likely  to  match  his  position. 

In  a  later  chapter  we  shall  examine  the  principles  of 
pecuniary  reward  but  we  must  here  anticipate  some  of  the 
conclusions  to  which  we  shall  there  be  led.  Does  it  not 
go  without  saying  that  the  principle  of  social  justice  in 
these  matters  must  be  social  in  character  and  tests?  That 
mode  of  distribution  is  just  which  works  for  the  welfare 
of  society.  Thus  our  outlook  is  teleological  and  social 
1  Skelton,  "Socialism,  A  Critical  Analysis,"  p.  199. 


126  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

instead  of  mechanical  and  individualistic.  The  older 
slogans  of  socialism  such  as,  "To  each  the  whole  product 
of  his  labor,"  were  individualistic  and  impossible  of  realiza- 
tion in  a  complicated  society  dominated  by  the  principle 
of  division  of  labor.  What  we  must  do  is  to  work  out  cus- 
toms and  institutions  which  give  a  greater  equality  of 
opportunity  and  thus  reduce  any  artificial  scarcity  as  much 
as  possible.  The  principle  of  distribution  must  be  im- 
manent and  dynamic  rather  than  external  and  mathemat- 
ical. What  increases  social  welfare  increases  justice. 

When  we  approach  the  problem  in  this  way,  we  realize 
that  there  need  be  no  sharp  break  between  our  present 
set  of  institutions  and  customs  and  those  which  are  to 
come.  As  economic  institutions  are  made  more  public, 
and  as  taxation  begins  to  establish  a  new  distribution  of 
opportunity,  social  justice  will  increase.  Hence  the 
evolutionary  socialist  can  agree  with  the  soi-disant  anti- 
socialist  who  asserts  that  "  Society's  best  hope  lies  in  con- 
tinuing to  moralize  the  laws  of  supply  and  demand,  not 
in  endeavoring  to  disregard  them."  The  socialist  is  simply 
more  radical  in  his  views  of  what  is  necessary  if  such 
moralization  is  to  go  very  far.  He  is  convinced  that  pub- 
lic endeavor  and  the  spirit  of  cooperation  will  change  the 
set  and  character  of  many  institutions  and  add  new  ones 
whose  purpose  will  be  the  increase  of  social  mobility  and 
individual  opportunity. 

In  accordance  with  the  genetic  standpoint,  we  have, 
in  our  answers  to  objections,  been  suggesting  the  most 
feasible  lines  of  growth  for  a  democratic  society  in  which 
a  cooperative  spirit  is  seeking  to  clothe  itself  in  fitting 
institutions  and  methods.  We  admitted  that  there  must 
be  an  advance  all  along  the  line  if  this  development  is  to 
be  natural  and  healthy.  The  community  must  work  out 


OBJECTIONS  AND  TENDENCIES  127 

and  institute  political  and  educational  reforms  which  will 
make  democracy  less  clumsy  and  more  enlightened.  And 
there  must  be  more  discipline  and  more  regard  for  public 
service.  But  this  change  in  atmosphere  would  not  be 
such  a  hard  task  as  it  has  sometimes  seemed  if  it  were 
taken  in  hand  by  voluntary  associations  and  pressed  upon 
the  consciousness  of  the  time.  Only  those  of  the  more 
comfortably  placed  classes  who  have  endeavored  to  assist 
reforms  of  this  kind  have  the  right  to  cast  stones  at  the 
proletarian  socialist. 

Let  us  now  see  whether  there  are  explicit  movements  in 
the  economic  field  corresponding  to  the  suggestions  which 
I  have  made  in  answer  to  practical  objections  to  socialism. 
A  careful  scrutiny  of  the  economic  field  discloses  at  least 
three  movements  kindred  to  socialism,  viz.'- — the  cooper- 
ative movement,  co-partnership  and  profit-sharing. 

Cooperation  is  a  democratic  association  of  individuals 
for  the  purpose  of  mutual  assistance.  It  occupies  a  posi- 
tion midway  between  our  dominantly  competitive  society 
and  municipal  socialism  and  is  quite  capable  of  passing 
over  into  the  latter  when  the  time  is  ripe.  There  are  co- 
operative societies  for  farming,  for  fruit-growing,  for 
building,  for  manufacturing  and  for  retail  distribution. 
As  a  successful  movement  it  goes  back  to  the  Rochdale 
pioneers,  a  group  of  twenty-eight  poor  men  who  got  to- 
gether a  capital  of  £28  by  very  small  subscriptions.  At 
first,  the  members  gave  their  own  time  after  their  work 
was  over  but,  as  the  years  passed  and  the  membership  in- 
creased, managers  with  a  definite  salary  were  appointed. 
The  reason  for  their  success  is  to  be  found  in  the  mode  of 
distributing  the  profits  of  the  enterprise.  "The  Rochdale 
pioneers  determined  that,  after  paying  5%  interest  on  the 
share  capital,  all  profit  should  be  allotted  to  the  purchasing 


128  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

members  in  proportion  to  their  purchases,  and  be  capital- 
ized in  the  name  of  the  member  entitled,  until  his  shares 
amounted  to  £5.  Thus  each  member  found  it  to  his  in- 
terest to  purchase  at  the  store  and  to  introduce  new  pur- 
chasers. The  ownership  of  the  store  remained  always 
with  the  purchasers  and  each  came  under  the  magic  in- 
fluence of  a  little  capital  saved."  The  facts  to  note  are 
the  stimulus  to  thrift  and  the  absolutely  democratic 
manner  of  ownership  and  management.  Here  we  have  in 
operation  an  open  group  which  welcomes  all  new  members. 
The  more  that  enter  the  better  for  all.  Moreover,  as  Mrs. 
Webb  points  out,  there  is  in  the  cooperative  stores  a  prac- 
tical elimination  of  the  traditional  element  of  profit. 

For  a  glimpse  at  the  results  of  this  movement  let  me 
quote  from  Mr.  Williams'  article  in  the  Encyclopedia 
Britannica.  This  article  is  well  worth  reading  but  should 
be  supplemented  by  Mrs.  Sidney  Webb's  "Co-operative 
Movement  in  Great  Britain."  "Outwardly  these  stores 
may  look  like  mere  shops,  but  they  are  really  much  more. 
First,  they  are  managed  with  a  view  not  to  a  proprietor's 
profit,  but  to  cheap  and  good  commodities.  Secondly, 
they  have  done  an  immense  work  for  thrift  and  the  mate- 
rial prosperity  of  the  working-classes,  and  as  teachers  of 
business  and  self-government.  But  further,  they  have  a 
distinct  social  and  economic  aim,  namely,  to  correct  the 
present  inequalities  of  wealth,  and  substitute  for  the 
competitive  system  an  industry  controlled  by  all  in  the 
common  interest,  and  distributing  on  principles  of  equity 
and  reason,  mutually  agreed  on,  the  wealth  produced. 
With  this  view  they  acknowledge  the  duties  of  fair  pay 
and  good  conditions  for  their  own  employees,  and  of  not 
buying  goods  made  under  bad  conditions.  The  best 
societies  further  set  aside  a  small  proportion  of  their  profits 


OBJECTIONS  AND  TENDENCIES  129 

for  educational  purposes,  including  concerts,  social  gather- 
ings, classes,  lectures,  reading-rooms  and  libraries,  and 
often  make  grants  to  causes  with  which  they  sympa- 
thize. .  .  .  There  are  of  course  many  defects,  and  of  their 
two  million  members  a  large,  and  many  fear  an  increasing 
proportion,  attracted  by  the  prosperity  of  the  societies, 
think  chiefly  of  what  they  themselves  gain;  but  the  govern- 
ment of  the  movement  has,  hitherto  at  least,  been  largely 
in  the  hands  of  men  of  ideas,  who  believe  that  stores  are 
but  a  step  to  cooperative  production,  and  on  to  the  'co- 
operative commonwealth.' " 

The  cooperative  movement  has  been  very  successful  on 
the  continent  of  Europe  but  has  secured  little  hold  in  the 
United  States  on  the  distributive  side.  In  this  country 
agricultural  cooperation  for  the  sake  of  eliminating  the 
middle-man  has  had  some  success,  especially  among  wheat 
and  fruit  growers;  but  our  individualism  has  thus  far  pre- 
vented a  development  of  cooperation  at  all  correspondent 
to  that  of  Europe.  It  needs  more  than  necessity  to  mother 
inventions.  But  there  are  many  signs  that  conditions  are 
ripe  for  vigorous  cooperative  movements.  What  are 
needed  are  a  willingness  to  pull  together  and  the  spread 
of  sane  ideas  of  the  type  of  business  organization  required. 
Both  in  England  and  France,  lawyers  and  men  of  business 
acumen  have  had  public  spirit  enough  to  agitate  for  laws 
helpful  to  the  growth  of  cooperation.  We,  on  the  other 
hand,  have  had  too  few  men  of  standing  who  have  been 
willing  to  spend  themselves  for  such  a  tendency. 

Those  who  are  interested  in  the  statistical  side  of  the 
cooperative  movement  will  find  an  excellent  summary  in 
the  works  referred  to.  That  it  contains  suggestions  for  the 
economic  evolution  of  the  future  cannot  be  denied.  M. 
Charles  Gide,  an  eminent  French  economist,  believes  that 


ISO  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

some  such  tendency  will  operate  for  the  progressive  aboli- 
tion of  the  capitalist  type  of  production.  It  has  in  it  this 
possibility  and,  in  any  case,  will  be  one  of  the  factors  to 
train  society  in  the  spirit  and  methods  of  cooperation. 
Let  us  hope  that  America  will  not  be  far  behind  in  this 
phase  of  the  democratic  spirit.  What  is  needed  is,  of 
course,  the  burgeoning  of  a  new  purpose,  a  new  ideal  to 
soften  or  supplant  the  unimaginative  individualism  which 
our  social  atomism  has  fostered. 

Co-partnership  and  profit-sharing  have  in  them  pos- 
sibilities which  make  them  rank  with  cooperation  as  germs 
of  the  future  industrial  democracy.  "For  three  genera- 
tions at  least  there  have  been  voices  crying  that  much  was 
wrong  in  our  industrial  organization;  and  that  mere  wage 
service,  while  producing  no  doubt  great  results  in  many 
ways,  was  producing  also  separation  of  classes,  with  ir- 
responsibility and  neglect,  on  the  moral  side;  and,  on  the 
material  side,  unemployment,  poverty,  suffering  and  de- 
generacy. Among  the  many  cures  propounded  by  small 
groups,  none  has  had  more  distinguished  advocates  than 
co-partnership  found  in  John  Stuart  Mill,  Herbert  Spen- 
cer,1 Alfred  Marshall  and  George  Jacob  Holyyoake.  But 
the  great  majority  of  middle  and  upper-class  people  have 
gone  on  either  ignoring  the  whole  question,  or  declaring  that 
nothing  was  seriously  wrong:  at  any  rate  nothing  which 
could  be  put  right  by  changes  in  our  economic  organiza- 
tion, whatever  might  be  done  by  the  spread  of  religion  and 

1  So  many  critics  of  socialism  quote  Herbert  Spencer  that  it  may  be 
interesting  to  quote  a  passage  from  his  "  Principles  of  Sociology : "  "  So  long 
as  the  worker  remains  a  wage-earner,  the  marks  of  status  do  not  wholly 
disappear.  For  so  many  hours  daily,  he  makes  over  his  facilities  to  a 
master  or  to  a  cooperative  group  for  so  much  money,  and  is,  for  a  time, 
owned  by  him  or  it.  He  is  temporarily  in  the  position  of  a  slave;  and  his 
overlooker  stands  in  the  position  of  a  slave-driver." 


OBJECTIONS  AND  TENDENCIES  131 

education  or  even  by  purely  political  changes."1  Mere 
wage  service  has  spelled  industrial  autocracy,  particularly 
so  when  combined  with  the  materialistic  outlook  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that,  during 
this  century,  society  has  not  been  inspired  by  ideals  of  a 
character  that  would  counteract  the  industrial  organiza- 
tion. 

Profit-sharing  is  defined  as  an  agreement  freely  entered 
into,  by  which  the  employee  receives  a  share,  fixed  in  ad- 
vance, of  the  profits  of  the  particular  business  which  em- 
ploys him.  In  this  way,  the  employee  becomes  an  inter- 
ested member  of  the  enterprise  and  shares  in  its  fortunes. 
But  the  purpose  is  also  important  since  it  determines  in 
large  measure  the  spirit  in  which  the  agreement  is  under- 
taken. If  the  purpose  is  still  individualistic  and  does  not 
have  aught  in  mind  but  a  stimulation  of  the  wage-earners 
and  the  prevention  of  strikes,  it  is  not  in  line  with  socialism 
except  by  accident.  By  accident,  I  mean  that  it*  may  bear 
witness  to  the  weakness  of  the  purely  competitive  wage 
system,  its  disharmony  with  democracy. 

While  profit-sharing  is  one  element  of  co-partnership, 
the  ownership  of  part  of  the  capital  by  the  workers  is  the 
other  feature  which  makes  it  an  advance  socially  upon 
profit-sharing.  This  ownership  is  supposed  to  lead  to  the 
representation  of  the  workers  on  the  governing  body  of  the 
company.  There  is,  however,  the  tendency  to  give  the 
workers  a  larger  representation  on  the  board  than  that  to 
which  their  shares  entitle  them  in  recognition  of  their 
unique  position  in  the  business.  In  this  way,  the  relations 
between  the  entrepreneur  and  the  citizens  who  collaborate 
with  him  will  be  more  harmonious  and  raised  to  a  higher 
ethical  level.  The  responsibility  of  direction  must  not  be 
1  Williams.  "Co-partnership  and  Profit-sharing,"  p.  11. 


132  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

weakened  by  lack  of  unity  but  a  new  spirit  must  enter  into 
the  entire  enterprise.  The  problem  is  one  for  experimenta- 
tion carried  on  in  the  spirit  of  good-will.  On  the  whole, 
the  situation  does  not  differ  greatly  from  that  which 
exists  to-day  in  the  affairs  of  the  municipality.  In  both 
fields,  democracy  must  work  out  methods  of  control 
which  combine  responsibility  and  efficiency.  Probably 
the  two  movements  will  react  upon  and  guide  one  an- 
other. 

Those  who  desire  to  gain  a  more  detailed  knowledge  of 
the  nature  of  these  new  forms  of  business  organization 
should  study  the  classic  instances  of  Leclaire  in  Paris  and 
Godin,  the  founder  of  the  Familistere,  at  Guise.  Were  the 
history  of  these  experiments,  which  turned  out  so  success- 
fully, better  known  in  the  United  States,  there  would,  I  am 
sure,  be  more  attempts  to  do  analogous  things  here.  But 
there  is  an  example  of  profit-sharing  and  co-partnership 
in  the  United  States  worthy  of  mention  by  the  side  of  these 
classic  instances,  that  of  the  N.  O.  Nelson  Manufacturing 
Co.  of  St.  Louis.  To  give  the  history  of  this  enterprise  in 
detail  would  take  too  much  of  our  space  but  certain  land- 
marks may  be  indicated.  In  1887  Mr.  Nelson  introduced 
profit-sharing  and,  two  years  after,  the  principle  of  co- 
partnership. In  1905  he  extended  the  profit-sharing  to 
take  in  the  customers.  The  circular  in  which  he  announced 
this  change  of  policy  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  doc- 
uments in  the  history  of  industry  according  to  one  who 
can  speak  with  some  authority.  After  stating  the  method 
in  accordance  with  which  profits  will  be  shared,  he  goes 
on  to  say:  "I  have  been  the  active  head  of  this  business 
for  over  thirty  years.  /  am  the  owner  of  as  much  or  more 
property  than  I  want.  It  has  been  made  by  the  cooperation 
of  the  employees  and  the  customers.  I  now  want  them  to  have 


OBJECTIONS  AND  TENDENCIES  133 

the  benefit  of  it.  As  the  business  has  been  for  several  years 
and  is  now  and  looks  for  the  future,  it  should  take  a  very 
few  years  to  pass  it  entirely  into  the  ownership  of  the  em- 
ployees and  the  customers.  It  can  be  made  more  and  more 
profitable  by  this  mutual  interest,  and  this  additional 
profit  goes  entirely  to  those  who  made  it." 

Had  Mr.  Carnegie  followed  such  a  course  and  exper- 
imented in  the  institution  of  such  a  form  of  voluntary 
socialism,  I  have  no  doubt  that  his  fame  would  be  far 
greater  than  philanthropy  alone  can  make  it.  The  action 
of  such  men  as  Leclaire,  Godin  and  Nelson  is  socially 
creative;  while  external  philanthropy,  however  admirable 
in  its  way,  rests  at  a  lower  level.  The  possibilities  open 
to  a  successful  employer  are  seldom  realized  because 
private  ambitions  occupy  the  foreground  and  inhibit  all 
impulses  of  a  nobler  kind.  Seldom  does  the  employer 
come  up  to  his  duties,  let  alone  his  possibilities.  It  re- 
mains to  be  seen  whether  a  very  able  and  extremely  suc- 
cessful employer  of  a  near  city  will  grow  in  vision  and  in 
deed  along  the  lines  of  industrial  organization  to  the  extent 
that  his  statements  and  activities  sometimes  give  reason 
to  expect.  What  could  not  a  few  of  our  privileged  citizens 
accomplish  if  they  had  the  unselfishness  and  the  creative 
imagination!  Are  the  Marxian  socialists  right  when  they 
assert  that  the  new  democracy  must  arise  as  did  Christian- 
ity from  the  lowly  rather  than  from  those  of  high  degree? 
It  may  be;  and  then  I  shall  think  shame  of  the  wealthy 
and  of  those  in  places  of  authority,  that  they  did  not  have 
the  ability  or  the  nobility  to  transform  a  system  which  the 
spirit  of  democracy  had  so  evidently  outgrown.  In  his 
patriotism  the  wealthy  Greek  trained  a  chorus  or  gave  a 
trireme  to  his  native  city.  Let  our  euergetes,  or  public 
benefactor,  lead  the  way  in  the  transformation  of  our 


134  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

economic  autocracy  to  a  commonwealth  in  which  the  con- 
ditions of  a  social  freedom  have  been  established.  Let 
our  kings  of  finance  and  barons  of  coal  and  lumber  and 
iron  do  that  which  has  never  been  done  before,  establish 
a  new  order  freely  by  giving  up  part  at  least  of  their  domin- 
ion. 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  ETHICS  OF  LABOR 

THE  ethics  of  labor  are  bound  up  with  the  ethics  of 
leisure.  An  adequate  treatment  of  the  one  topic  involves 
at  least  a  sketch  of  the  proper  attitude  toward  the  other. 
In  the  following  study  of  the  ethics  of  labor  I  shall  there- 
fore give  a  fair  measure  of  the  space  to  thoughts  upon  the 
wise  use  of  leisure.  If  the  socialist  demands  more  free 
time  for  the  mass  of  the  people,  he  must,  at  the  same 
moment,  show  how  he  wishes  this  time  to  be  spent.  Social- 
ism must  be  constructive  in  spiritual  things  as  well  as  in 
things  material.  Surely  it  is  old  enough  by  now  not  to 
let  the  bitterness  it  feels  against  injustice  crowd  out  all 
thought  of  the  right  use  of  that  leisure  which  it  so  much 
desires  to  multiply. 

Our  chief  trouble  to-day  is  that  we  have  not  been  able 
to  make  the  separation  between  means  and  ends  distinct 
enough  and  thus  see  life  as  an  ethical  whole.  The  means 
to  life  are  so  complex,  absorbing  and  difficult  to  master 
that  they  obscure  the  larger  issues.  In  a  simpler  society, 
like  that  of  the  old  Greek  city-state,  this  separation  was 
more  easily  made.  The  modern  social  thinker  would  do 
well  to  take  up  his  Aristotle  once  in  a  while  and  read  such 
a  passage  as  the  following:  "The  whole  of  life  is  further 
divided  into  two  parts,  business  and  leisure,  war  and  peace, 
and  all  actions  into  those  which  are  honorable  and  those 
which  are  necessary  and  useful  .  .  .  there  must  be  war 
for  the  sake  of  peace,  business  for  the  sake  of  leisure, 
things  useful  and  necessary  for  the  sake  of  things  honor- 

135 


136  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

able."  Here  we  have  a  series  of  subordinations  which 
would  be  revolutionary  to-day  were  they  taken  seriously. 
But  do  we  not  all  have  a  suspicion  of  their  truth?  A 
simple  life  which  is  vigorous  and  creative  may  nourish 
a  better  sense  of  values  and  have  a  truer  perspective 
than  a  more  complex  society  which  is  turgid  and  in- 
choate. 

When  Sombart  wishes  to  convey  to  his  readers  the  es- 
sence of  the  socialist  gospel  of  happiness  he  quotes  a  poem 
of  Heine's — 

"A  new  song,  a  sweeter  song, 
O  friends,  let  me  sing  you: 
We  want  to  set  up  here  on  earth 
The  heaven  for  which  we  hope. 

"  We  want  to  be  happy  here  on  earth, 
And  not  to  hunger  more; 
The  idle  belly  shall  no  longer  live 
On  that  which  busy  hands  create. 

"  There  is  bread  in  plenty  here  on  earth 
For  every  human  creature; 
There  are  roses  and  myrtles,  beauty  and  joy 
And  sweet  peas,  too,  in  plenty." 

"I  am  certain,"  he  writes,  "that  in  every  system  of 
socialism  the  'gospel  of  work/  as  it  is  here  expressed,  re- 
ceives prominence.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the 
glorification  of  labor  is  the  central  point  in  all  socialist 
ethics,  and  that  discussions  on  the  organization  of  labor, 
on  the  relation  between  labor  and  production,  between 
labor  and  profit,  between  labor  and  enjoyment  form  the 
kernel  of  all  socialist  theories.  The  world  of  the  future 
will  be  a  world  of  work,  where  the  most  widely  accepted 


THE  ETHICS  OF  LABOR  137 

principle  shall  be:  'He  who  does  not  work  shall  not  eat.' 
On  this  all  socialists  are  agreed."1 

But  the  socialist  goes  further  than  a  mere  praise  of  work. 
Carlyle  and  Tolstoi  greatly  praised  work  and  condemned 
those  who  live  in  idleness  upon  the  fruits  of  others'  toil. 
The  socialist  agrees  with  this  moral  teaching  but  he  seeks 
to  give  it  a  social  foundation  in  the  economic  order  itself. 
In  doing  so,  however,  he  must  reckon  with  the  economist. 

The  economist  deals  primarily  with  the  ways  in  which 
a  society  gets  its  livelihood.  Increase  of  the  national 
dividend  is  an  end  or  good  which  he  whole-heartedly  de- 
sires. And,  so  long  as  this  increase  of  income  does  not 
involve  the  subordination  of  fundamental  human  values, 
we  cannot  but  agree  with  him.  Taken  as  a  mere  fact, 
the  additional  productivity  which  the  union  of  ma- 
chinery with  division  of  labor  makes  possible  is  to  be  wel- 
comed. But  we  must  never  forget — as  the  specialist  in 
political  economy  is  so  prone  to  do — that  we  have  made 
this  preliminary  abstraction  from  human  values  and  that 
other  aspects  of  life  must  be  taken  into  consideration  when 
we  wish  to  look  upon  society  from  a  broader  viewpoint. 
The  more  critical  thinker  is  inclined  to  be  more  than 
sceptical  of  the  assumption  that  an  increase  in  the  na- 
tional dividend  necessarily  involves  an  increase  in  human 
welfare.  The  existence  of  such  a  simple  mathematical 
correspondence  offering  a  clue  to  an  infallible  means  of 
securing  human  welfare  would  be  marvellous  when  we 
consider  what  a  complex  thing  human  welfare  is.  Just 
increase  the  number  of  pins,  potatoes,  autos,  books, 
jewelry,  lace  and  buildings;  and  all  will  be  well.  Was 
there  ever  a  more  naive  assumption  than  this?  Must  we 
not  ask  further  questions?  Have  the  various  goods  been 
1  Sombart,  "Socialism  and  the  Socialist  Movement,"  pp.  24-5. 


138  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

produced  in  the  right  proportion?  Are  luxuries  sub- 
ordinated to  necessities?  Is  money  demand  the  same  as 
the  real  human  demand?  In  truth,  production  cannot  be 
separated  from  distribution  and  consumption.  The  har- 
mony the  conservative  economist  tends  to  assume  is 
looked  upon  by  the  socialist  as  a  difficult  social  achieve- 
ment. And  it  is  an  ever  nearer  approach  to  this  ideal  at 
which  he  aims. 

If  democracy  has  any  ethical  significance,  it  means  that 
individuals  are  valuable  for  their  own  sake  and  that  their 
personality  must  never  be  violated  more  than  is  necessary. 
Every  person  possesses  prospective  rights  in  so  far  as  he 
is  capable  of  development  and  any  abridgment  of  these 
rights  or  the  conditions  which  give  them  meaning  must  be 
held  suspect  until  shown  to  follow  from  the  exigencies  of 
the  situation.  Hence,  to  set  increased  production  as  a 
goal  which  absolutely  justifies  itself,  no  matter  what  means 
may  be  adopted  or  what  division  of  human  costs  and  na- 
tional dividend  may  exist,  is  to  lose  sight  of  the  old  truth 
that  "Life  is  more  than  meat." 

Industrial  institutions  are  complex  and  have  had  an 
evolution  under  the  pressure  of  forces  and  motives  which 
were  largely  non-moral.  While  there  has  probably  always 
been  a  large  utility  in  particular  customs  and  methods, 
there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  this  utility  was  ever  more 
than  rough  and  imperfect.  We  read  that  the  Athenians 
were  compelled  to  cancel  the  debts  of  the  peasant  popula- 
tion in  order  to  prevent  them  from  being  sold  as  slaves, 
that  the  Romans  were  confronted  by  a  revolution  of  the 
plebs  for  the  same  reason,  that  the  peasants  of  France  were 
so  oppressed  that  they  arose  against  their  feudal  masters 
in  horrible  rebellions,  that  the  laboring  population  of 
England  was  threatened  with  degeneration  as  a  conse- 


THE  ETHICS  OF  LABOR  139 

quence  of  the  industrial  revolution  and  the  lack  of  social 
control  that  accompanied  it.  The  utility  of  institutions  can 
so  easily  be  the  utility  of  a  dominant  group  rather  than  of 
society  as  a  whole.  The  truth  is  that,  in  the  past,  such 
caste-utility  was  always  dominant  so  that  nobles  and  their 
retainers  were  clad  in  fine  raiment  and  supped  of  the  best 
while  the  peasants  were  ground  to  the  earth.  The  inci- 
dence of  economic  institutions  depends,  in  other  words, 
upon  the  social  organization  as  a  whole.  The  fault  with 
the  common  sense  individualist  is  that  he  refuses  to  recog- 
nize this  relationship,  refuses  to  see  the  part  played  by 
inheritance  and  methods  of  management  and  class-groups. 
Because  of  this  blindness,  he  does  not  see  that  it  is  not  an 
easy  thing  to  make  the  incidence  of  labor  and  the  distri- 
bution of  rewards  just;  that  it  is  one  of  the  hardest  problems 
facing  democracy  to  bring  about  this  harmony.  Too  much 
faith  in  the  natural  justice  of  things — in  spite  of  all  that 
modern  science  has  dinned  into  our  ears — too  much  con- 
I  tentment  with  one's  own  lot  in  life,  too  little  imagination 
|  of  the  lot  of  others,  too  much  acceptance  of  past  institu- 
tions as  the  final  word  of  social  wisdom;  all  these  faiths 
have  brought  their  inertias.  For  all  these  reasons,  in- 
dustrial institutions  have  a  kind  of  momentum  which  car- 
ries them  on  long  after  men  have  dreamed  of  radical 
changes. 

We  may  say,  then,  that  the  nature  and  distribution  of 
labor  is  determined  by  our  institutions.  Let  us  see  whether 
there  is  anything  to  criticize  and  correct  in  present  arrange- 
ments when  looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  of  democratic 
ethics.  Are  our  economic  institutions  harmonious  with 
those  ideals  of  relevant  equality,  true  liberty  and  self- 
realization  which  are  pushing  more  and  more  into  popular 
consciousness?  Are  the  human  costs  of  labor  distributed 


140  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

justly?  Is  the  personality  of  the  workman  sinned  against 
more  than  is  necessary?  What  part  does  labor  play  in  life, 
and  what  part  should  it  play?  These  are  questions  which 
inevitably  arise  when  we  bring  ethics  with  its  emphasis 
upon  human  values  into  touch  with  industry. 

In  early  times  work  was  more  intimately  bound  up  with 
the  natural  activities  of  men  than  it  now  is.  It  had  a 
healthy  and  direct  connection  with  organic  instincts  and 
hardly  needed  any  external  incentive.  To  fish  or  to  hunt 
gave  pleasure  even  though  it  brought  fatigue.  The  ac- 
tivities contained  their  own  interest  and  were  not  merely 
means  for  the  securing  of  food  and  clothing.  The  fact 
that  they  continued  as  sports  when  they  were  no  longer 
necessary  bears  witness  to  their  attractiveness.  But  we 
must  not  go  to  the  extreme  that  the  eighteenth  century 
idealist  of  savage  life  allowed  himself  to  go;  there  was  hard 
physical  work  to  do,  though  no  more  of  this  was  done  than 
was  absolutely  necessary.  While  war  engaged  the  atten- 
tion of  the  men,  the  women  usually  did  the  little  cultiva- 
tion of  the  soil  that  was  engaged  in.  The  nearest  approach 
to  labor  as  task- work  is  to  be  found  in  those  early  forms  of 
slavery  which  arise  during  the  transition  from  a  nomadic 
to  an  agricultural  life.  The  slave  was  forced  to  do  what 
the  master  found  no  pleasure  in.  Thus  we  have  in  slavery 
the  entrance  of  force  as  a  motive  to  work.  But  this  prim- 
itive labor  was  not  specialized  and  seldom  lacked  variety 
and  interest. 

As  civilization  developed,  society  specialized  into  classes 
with  fairly  distinct  functions.  The  warrior  class  protected 
the  country  and  carried  on  wars  of  invasion;  the  priestly 
class  took  care  of  the  religious  rites;  and  the  peasant  or 
working-class  provided  the  food  and  raiment.  Mingled 
with  the  peasants  and  small  landholders  were  the  slaves 


THE  ETHICS  OF  LABOR  141 

taken  in  the  wars,  and  workers  in  the  various  crafts  which 
had  grown  up.  Different  social  functions  thus  had  classes 
born  and  bred  to  take  charge  of  them.  With  certain  ex- 
ceptions, those  who  did  the  more  menial  work  were  not 
driven  over  hard.  Life  was  not  run  on  the  strenuous  plan 
that  it  was  later  to  achieve.  It  was  not  until  kings  planned 
great  undertakings  and  the  Roman  patrician  found  it  more 
profitable  to  use  up  cheap  slaves  on  the  plantation  than  to 
take  care  of  them,  that  slave  labor  became  the  horrible 
thing  we  usually  think  of  it  as  being.  Men  worked  fairly 
hard  and  had  rather  empty  lives,  but  the  intelligence  of 
the  majority  was  not  very  high  and  their  existence  was, 
therefore,  far  from  being  a  martyrdom.  We  must  always 
bear  in  mind  the  psychological  aspect  of  institutions. 

At  first,  the  dominant  classes  had  duties  which  justified 
their  rights.  The  Roman  patrician  was  a  statesman  and 
warrior  who  had  a  stern  view  of  life  and  was  by  no  means 
idle.  As  Taine  points  out,  the  early  feudal  leaders  were 
exceptional  men,  brave  and  born  leaders  who  had  their 
horses  ready  to  hand,  quick  to  jump  from  couch  to  saddle 
for  the  protection  of  those  who  had  chosen  them  as  guard- 
ians. But  as  peace  gradually  came,  their  descendants 
retained  the  rights  while  the  duties  had  almost  disap- 
peared. Plato  speaks  of  the  plutocrat  who  presents  a 
sorry  figure  in  the  field  where  he  is  clearly  outdistanced 
by  rugged  and  athletic  men. 

Now  this  leisure  class  which  possessed  rights  without 
many  duties  was  very  apt  to  devote  itself  to  pursuits 
symbolic  of  its  position — to  court  functions,  to  sports, 
to  art,  to  games,  to  luxurious  living.  What  was  the  un- 
conscious motive?  Perhaps  conspicuous  display.  One 
writer  has  put  the  matter  rather  cynically  in  this  way: 
"The  glory  of  the  successful  sportsman  is  due  to  the  fact 


142  HE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

that  his  deeds  are  futile."  There  is  a  deal  of  truth  in  this 
analysis.  Sport  has  prestige  among  the  leisure  classes 
because  it  is  a  vivid  expression  of  their  economic  position, 
of  what  public  opinion  is  at  last  beginning  to  call  their 
parasitism. 

The  result  of  this  division  of  society  into  social  classes, 
consisting,  on  the  one  hand,  of  those  who  were  compelled 
to  labor,  and,  on  the  other,  of  those  who  could  easily  shirk 
their  social  responsibility  or  else  had  largely  lost  their 
duties,  was  the  growing  contrast  between  work  of  an  en- 
forced character  and  pleasant,  self-chosen  activities. 
The  mass  of  the  people  had  to  toil  under  conditions  which 
were  irksome  and  not  very  inviting,  while  the  favored 
few  were  their  own  masters.  The  actions  approved  of 
by  the  upper  classes  were  not  looked  upon  as  work  while 
that  which  they  avoided  was  thought  of  as  labor,  some- 
thing which  people  would  not  do  unless  they  could  not 
help  themselves.  Such  a  mode  of  life  was  the  symbol  of  a 
low  social  status;  it  was  ignoble  and  servile.  Our  language 
bears  the  impress  of  this  social  contrast. 

A  part  of  the  consequence  of  this  division  of  activities 
and  modes  of  life  into  those  freely  chosen  by  the  dominant 
classes  and  the  toil  enforced  upon  the  mass  of  the  people 
by  their  handicaps  was  the  dislike  felt  for  work.  Work 
was  a  curse  which  all  escaped  who  could.  A  life  of  leisure 
became  the  ideal  and  met  its  fulfillment  in  the  Court. 
Idleness  was  looked  upon  as  nobler  than  industry.  The 
lack  of  serious  interests  to  rule  life  made  it  easy  to  drift 
from  one  thing  to  another,  to  magnify  matters  of  etiquette 
and  to  give  way  to  pleasure-seeking.  It  was  inevitable 
that  an  aristocracy  which  had  outlived  its  function  should 
manifest  this  fact  in  the  character  of  its  life.  The  moral 
which  the  courts  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  Charles  the 


THE  ETHICS  OF  LABOR  143 

Second  and  Napoleon  the  Third  have  for  us  is  plain  to 
read.  The  more  prestige  society  gave  this  sort  of  irre- 
sponsible life,  the  more  it  cast  a  false  glamor  over  an 
empty,  though  artificially  refined,  existence.  We  have 
here  the  problem  of  the  rise  and  nature  of  a  class  ethics. 
The  gentleman  who  leaned  back  in  his  carriage  and  com- 
placently watched  the  vulgar  at  work  in  the  fields  or  in 
the  smithy  felt  that  leisure  was  the  badge  of  his  class. 
Hence  it  was  doubly  sweet.  It  goes  without  saying  that 
such  an  individual,  full  of  the  prejudices  of  his  class,  would 
be  unable  to  appreciate  the  importance  of  work  as  a 
healthy  foundation  for  life. 

But  the  American  must  not  suppose  that  society  has 
escaped  from  the  malign  influence  of  a  leisure  class  with 
no  assignable  function.  Feudal  rights  which  almost  al- 
ways retained  some  slight  measure  of  direct  social  re- 
sponsibility have  been  replaced  by  legal  economic  rights 
which  are  quite  impersonal.  What  legal  responsibility 
has  the  man  who  has  inherited  property  in  bonds  and 
land  to  correspond  to  the  rights  which  cash  and  credit 
lay  open  before  him?  Society  gives  but  it  does  not  demand 
enough  hi  return.  Modern  private  property  is  the  most 
irresponsible  institution  ever  developed  and,  contrary 
to  general  opinion,  is  really  modern.  The  result  is  that 
conditions  have  led  to  the  growth  of  wealthy  groups 
with  no  adequate  outlet  for  their  energies  and  no  capaci- 
ties corresponding  to  their  opportunities.  In  America  a 
pioneer  tradition  of  work  has  partly  counteracted  the 
dangers  of  such  a  situation,  but  not  entirely.  The  idle 
rich  has  become  a  term  of  wide  use  and  satire  can  hardly 
do  justice  to  the  type  of  life  led  in  certain  circles.  There 
has  been  a  revulsion  from  work  and  a  dilettante  trifling 
with  life.  The  phenomenon  always  manifests  itself  but  it 


144  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

is  aided  by  the  prestige  of  a  literature  which  is  enamored 
of  a  life  of  idleness  and  copies  the  standards  of  the  aris- 
tocracy of  the  past.  It  would  seem  that  society  rewards 
certain  activities  so  highly  and  exercises  so  little  control 
over  the  distribution  of  this  excessive  reward  that  it 
tends  to  pauperize  the  rich — at  least  the  effect  is  very 
analogous  to  that  which  is  commonly  called  pauperization 
for  the  poor. 

In  a  sense,  there  was,  in  the  past,  a  good  deal  of  justifica- 
tion for  the  contempt  of  the  leisure  classes  for  those  who 
worked.  The  means  for  education  were  so  distinctly  a  class 
privilege  that  the  mass  of  the  people  were  rude  and  un- 
taught, uncouth  in  both  dress  and  manners.  To  those  who 
were  not  given  to  going  behind  appearances  to  causes,  it 
seemed  that  the  workers  were  different  in  nature,  that  they 
were  constitutionally  set  apart  for  heavy,  wearisome  labor, 
that  they  lacked  that  natural  refinement  which  they  felt 
themselves  to  possess.  How  well  comedy  echoed  this 
outlook  with  its  country  bumpkins,  its  dull-witted  louts 
and  hobble-de-hoys!  But  things  have  been  changing 
in  this  regard.  The  hero  of  the  modern  novel  is  apt  to  be 
a  workman  who  reads  Marx  and  Engels,  enjoys  Darwin 
and  is  fond  of  quoting  Ibsen  and  Galsworthy.  Why,  I 
actually  read  an  account  of  the  Panama  Canal  construc- 
tion not  long  ago  in  which  the  author,  an  acting  police- 
man, discovers  a  Spanish  workman  who  evidently  reads 
Darwin  and  Hegel  with  understanding  and  pleasure. 
Such  partial  justification  as  the  old  contrast  had  seems 
to  be  disappearing. 

The  essential  weakness  of  the  view  of  labor  held  by  the 
upper  classes  is  that  labor  is  regarded  as  merely  a  means 
to  wealth,  power  and  idleness  and  not  as  valuable  in  it- 
self. Life  has  been  such  a  scramble,  and  the  penalties 


THE  ETHICS  OF  LABOR  145 

meted  out  to  the  unsuccessful  have  been  so  severe,  that 
there  has  been  excuse  for  this  view  of  all  economic  en- 
terprise. Nevertheless,  it  has  been  short-sighted  and 
individualistic.  Life  has  come  to  be  thought  of  as  some- 
thing which  lies  beyond  labor,  whereas  the  right  kind  of 
labor  is  the  heart  of  life.  Such  is  the  nemesis  of  social 
injustice,  the  revenge  which  the  toiler  unconsciously 
exacts  from  the  leisure  classes.  Because  they  have  de- 
graded labor  into  a  thing  which  lacks  beauty  and  has 
the  associations  of  poverty  and  iron  necessity,  they  are 
led  to  despise  it  and  to  miss  the  sanity  and  strength  which 
it  imparts  to  life.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  so  few  of  the 
leisure  class  have  vital  lives.  They  have  no  large  interests 
and  plans,  the  carrying  out  of  which  by  persistent  effort 
would  give  them  a  happy  and  noble  life,  and  they  are 
forced  to  fall  to  the  level  of  seekers  of  distraction.  The 
stimulus  of  serious  purpose  and  of  large,  wholesome  prob- 
lems is  absent. 

It  is  within  this  general  social  setting  that  modern  fac- 
tory life  developed.  With  institutions  and  traditions  as 
they  were,  could  we  expect  that  ethical  and  psychologi- 
cal factors  would  receive  much  weight?  Let  us  see  what 
labor  has  become  as  the  result  of  mechanical  achieve- 
ments which  were  hailed  as  labor-saving. 

With  the  extension  of  capitalistic  enterprise  there  came 
about  a  mingling  of  labor  on  a  new  level — in  many  ways 
a  lower  level.  In  the  old  days,  even  though  labor  was 
despised  by  the  leisure  classes  as  degrading,  this  judgment 
was  hasty  and  for  certain  kinds  of  work  untrue  to  the 
facts  of  the  case.  Before  the  days  of  Henry  the  Seventh, 
if  we  may  believe  Sir  Thomas  More,  the  lot  of  the  peasant 
who  had  vested  rights  in  land  was  not  at  all  bad.  His 
position  was  much  like  that  of  the  small  American  farmer. 


146  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

While  there  is  no  need  to  go  to  the  extreme  to  which 
William  Morris  went  in  his  love  for  medieval  life,  there 
is  no  doubt  that  at  certain  epochs  the  yeoman  lived  a 
vigorous,  independent  life.  There  was  then,  if  ever,  the 
Merry  England  of  which  stories  tell.  The  city  craftsman 
also  had  work  to  do  in  which  he  took  pride.  He  was  an 
artisan  in  the  true  sense  of  that  word,  taking  a  just  pride 
in  his  handiwork.  Thus,  much  work  had  a  creative  aspect 
by  means  of  which  the  laborer  expressed  himself  and  gave 
vent  to  that  artistic  impulse  which  seems  to  slumber  not 
far  below  the  surface  in  all  men,  though  in  unequal  de- 
grees. When  this  is  so,  labor  can  be  both  means  and  end — 
necessity  and  desire  uniting  in  a  delightful  harmony. 

But  there  is  no  need  to  idealize  the  past  in  order  to 
understand  and  condemn  tlie  present.  Modern  indus- 
trialism arose  in  and  was  made  possible  by  a  chaotic 
mass  of  "free"  labor  loosed  from  its  old  mooring  on  the 
land.  With  the  instinct  to  live  as  strong  in  them  as  ever, 
men  were  led  into  economic  relations  in  which  they  were 
practically  helpless.  Freedom  of  contract  meant  freedom 
to  work  under  conditions  over  which  they  had  no  con- 
trol and  for  wages  which  were  extremely  low,  with  the  al- 
ternative of  starving.  Can  it  be  called  freedom  when 
there  is  virtually  no  choice?  Only  the  scholastic  mind  of 
the  lawyer  is  capable  of  gravely  asserting  that  there  is 
real  freedom  in  such  a  case. 

Without  the  possession  of  economic  liberty,  the  laboring 
classes  inevitably  became  the  servants  of  mechanical 
invention.  As  has  frequently  been  pointed  out,  neither 
inventors  nor  managers  give  much  attention  to  the  kind 
of  work  a  machine  demands  of  the  workmen  who  are  to 
tend  it.  Such  considerations  were  not  fostered  by  the 
prevailing  ethics  or  lack  of  democratic  ethics  of  the  time. 


THE  ETHICS  OF  LABOR  147 

Since  division  of  labor  was  profitable,  men  gradually  took 
their  place  as  the  tenders  of  complicated  machinery  and 
were  forced  to  work  long  hours  at  a  high  speed,  repeating 
the  same  movements,  in  order  to  supply  certain  links  in 
production  which  the  machine  was  not  quite  able  to  per- 
form. To  all  intents  and  purposes,  they  were  parts  of 
the  equipment  of  the  factory.  Since  invention  was  di- 
rected entirely  towards  results  of  a  quantitative  kind 
and  since  laborers  had  no  control  over  the  system,  psy- 
chological and  physiological  factors  were  unthought  of. 
The  workers  were  not  asked  whether  the  work  was  agree- 
able and  gave  any  room  for  self-expression.  Is  it  any 
wonder  that,  under  these  circumstances,  work  was  uni- 
versally regarded  as  needing  entirely  external  incentives? 
The  traditional  attitude  towards  work  was  strengthened 
by  this  new  development. 

Let  us  glance  at  some  of  the  human  costs  of  non-artistic 
labor,  labor  in  which  there  is  relatively  little  self-expression 
and  much  repetition  and  physical  exhaustion.  These 
costs  have  been  admirably  summarized  in  J.  A.  Hobson's 
recent  book,  "Work  and  Wealth,"  to  which  reference  has 
already  been  made.  I  shall  make  a  few  excerpts  which 
bring  out  the  points  in  which  we  are  interested.  "The 
conditions  of  most  labor  are  such  that  the  laborer  finds 
little  scope  for  thought  and  emotional  interest  in  the  work 
itself.  ...  To  feed  the  same  machinery  with  the  same 
quantity  of  the  same  material  at  the  same  pace,  so  as  to 
turn  out  an  endless  number  of  precisely  similar  articles 
is  the  absolute  antithesis  of  art.  ...  If  the  tender  could 
become  as  automatic  as  the  machine  he  tended,  if  he 
could  completely  mechanize  a  little  section  of  his  faculties, 
it  might  go  easier  with  him.  But  the  main  trend  of  life 
in  the  man  fights  against  the  mechanizing  tendency  of 


148  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

his  work,  and  this  struggle  entails  a  heavy  cost.  .  .  . 
The  statistics  in  various  countries  prove  that  fatigue  is  a 
very  important  factor  in  industrial  accident.  .  .  .  That 
over-fatigue  connected  with  industry  is  responsible  for 
large  numbers  of  nervous  disorders  is,  of  course,  generally 
admitted.  The  growing  prevalence  of  cardiac  neurosis 
and  of  neurasthenia  in  general  among  working-people  is 
attested  by  many  medical  authorities."  We  come  next 
to  the  psychical  side  of  the  worker's  life.  "But  when 
fatigue  advances,  the  irksomeness  brings  a  growing  feel- 
ing of  painful  effort,  and  a  long  bout  of  fatigue  produces 
as  its  concomitant  a  period  of  grave  conscious  irritation 
of  nerves  with  a  subsequent  period  of  painful  collapse.  .  .  . 
Drink  and  other  sensational  excesses  are  the  normal  re- 
actions of  this  lowered  morale.  Thus  fatigue  ranks  as  a 
main  determinant  of  the  'character*  of  the  working-classes 
and  has  a  social  significance  in  its  bearing  upon  order  and 
progress  not  less  important  than  its  influence  upon  the 
individual  organism."  Taking  all  these  physiological 
and  psychical  facts  into  consideration,  we  find  in  them  a 
heavy  indictment  against  the  nature  of  much  of  modern 
labor.  It  would  seem  that  the  personality  of  the  workman 
is  sinned  against  more  than  is  necessary.  Yet  it  is  a  part 
of  the  system  and,  so  long  as  pecuniary  values  autocratic- 
ally control  industry,  human  welfare  is  bound  to  suffer. 

Within  this  industrial  situation  and  for  this  class  of 
workers,  it  is  folly  to  over-praise  work.  But,  were  the 
hours  shorter  and  had  the  workers  more  control  over  the 
conditions  of  their  labor,  much  might  be  said  in  favor 
even  of  this  mechanical  type  of  labor.  It  is  a  mistake  to 
assume  that  automatic  actions  which  have  to  be  repeated 
in  a  certain  rhythmical  way  are  disagreeable  to  the  major- 
ity of  human  beings.  The  fault  has  been  that  the  natural 


THE  ETHICS  OF  LABOR  149 

pace  of  the  human  organism  has  been  too  much  disre- 
garded in  the  endeavor  to  speed  up.  As  society  really 
becomes  democratic  in  a  profound  sense  and  not  merely 
in  the  political  forms,  the  control  of  industry  in  the  inter- 
est of  the  workers  will  become  more  conspicuous.  Demo- 
cratic ethics  must  develop  an  ethics  of  work. 

If  individuals  are  to  reach  the  level  of  development 
of  which  they  are  capable,  they  must  express  themselves 
in  activities  of  various  kinds.  There  must  be  interests, 
things  which  draw  them  out  and  link  them  with  their 
fellow  men.  Otherwise,  individuals  are  almost  bound  to 
remain  stagnant  and  undeveloped  or  else  to  degenerate. 
Proper  work,  adapted  to  the  capacities  of  the  person,  car- 
ried along  under  agreeable  conditions  and  not  lasting 
long  enough  to  over-fatigue  is  essential  to  a  satisfactory 
personality.  To  bring  this  ethical  ideal  about,  there 
must  take  place  an  almost  revolutionary  redistribution  of 
labor  and  of  the  income  derived  from  labor.  And  it  is 
certainly  one  of  the  problems  of  modern  socialism  to  aid 
in  the  evolution  of  this  more  ethically  organized  industrial 
society.  The  manual  workers  are,  themselves,  vaguely 
groping  toward  a  partial  solution  of  this  ethico-economic 
problem  but  their  efforts  must  be  supplemented  by  the 
conscious  endeavors  of  others. 

True  democracy  must  regard  all  necessary  work  as 
honorable  and  must  seek  to  give  adequate  rewards.  Prob- 
ably more  care  should  be  taken  with  regard  to  the  min- 
imum of  this  reward  than  with  the  maximum,  although 
this  latter  should  not  be  allowed  to  mount  too  high.  This 
problem  we  will,  however,  consider  in  more  detail  later. 

On  the  whole,  artistic  work  has  been  better  treated  than 
manual  labor;  but  we  must  not  forget  that  many  great 
artists  have  lived  and  died  in  comparative  poverty.  A 


150  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

noble  society  will  treat  choice  things  nobly  and  be  willing 
to  err  on  the  side  of  over-recognition  in  preference  to  that 
of  neglect.  The  great  thinkers,  artists,  discoverers  and 
poets  have  more  than  earned  all  that  society  ever  gave 
them — which  was  often  little  enough — and  it  will  be  to  the 
honor  of  democracy  if  it  encourage  those  among  its  ranks 
who  are  born  with  the  divine  fire  in  then*  breasts.  The 
question  of  reward  becomes  here  little  more  than  that  of 
efficiency,  of  the  conditions  of  a  sane  life  and  a  fruitful 
leisure.  The  costs  of  creative  labor  can  never  be  escaped 
by  means  of  legislative  enactment  just  as  its  true  joys  can 
never  be  stolen;  but  a  society  which  admires  the  most 
distinctive  of  human  achievements  will  do  its  best  to  re- 
move those  external  cares  which  bear  upon  the  creator  and 
slowly  palsy  his  hand.  This  does  not  mean,  however,  that 
the  artist  or  philosopher  or  poet  must  be  treated  like  an 
invalid  and  robbed  of  that  vital  contact  with  the  real  cur- 
rents of  life  which  should  give  him  robustness  and  vigor. 
I  hope  and  believe  that  democracy  will  in  the  long  run, 
when  it  has  become  more  than  formal,  give  the  lie  to  those 
defenders  of  aristocracy  who  assert  that  democracy  will 
never  have  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  elevation  to 
rejoice  hi  and  foster  the  gracious  sides  of  life.  Let  us  not 
fool  ourselves:  the  society  of  to-day  in  the  United  States 
is  not  democracy,  it  is  plutocratic  commercialism  dom- 
inated by  pecuniary  values.  Democracy  is  as  yet  largely 
a  matter  of  vague  sentiment  and  of  perplexed  wishing. 

It  is  well  for  us  to  bear  in  mind  the  almost  inevitable 
misunderstanding  of  one  another  to  which  different  classes 
of  workers  are  subject.  The  unskilled  laborer  has  usually 
little  conception  of  the  immense  amount  of  nervous  energy 
expended  by  the  manager  of  a  business  who  wishes  to  make 
the  concern  march.  Worries  and  plans  are  not  visible 


THE  ETHICS  OF  LABOR  151 

things  which  can  be  carried  around  and  displayed;  their 
nature  cannot  be  understood  completely  except  by  one 
with  a  similar  experience.  Sympathetic  imagination 
needs  training,  education  and  the  relative  absence  of  envy. 
In  that  marvellous  description  of  the  life  of  the  true  artist 
in  "Cousin  Betty,"  Balzac  quotes  the  words  of  a  poet  who 
speaks  of  the  frightful  labor  of  creation:  "I  begin  my  work 
with  despair  in  my  heart  and  leave  it  with  chagrin."  We 
see  the  outside  of  people  just  as  we  see  the  outside  of  their 
houses.  One  of  the  questions,  then,  which  social  ethics 
must  solve  is  to  remove  that  sense  of  injustice  which  pre- 
vents the  growth  of  fair-minded  appreciation  of  different 
kinds  of  work.  Mere  exhortation  on  the  part  of  those  who 
have  more  than  their  share  of  the  good  things  of  life  can- 
not accomplish  this  desirable  end;  there  must  be  a  re- 
organization of  the  economic  side  of  life.  A  sound  social 
life  cannot  be  built  upon  foundations  which  conflict  with 
the  newer  sense  of  justice  which  is  growing  up  around  us. 
There  must  be  publicity  in  regard  to  the  work  actually 
done  by  different  people,  so  far  as  this  is  possible,  and 
pretty  equal  opportunity  in  regard  to  selection  of  occupa- 
tion. 

I  have  often  watched  a  day-laborer  with  almost  a  feeling 
of  envy;  yet  I  knew  that  I  was  idealizing  his  position — I 
saw  what  seemed  good  to  me  and  forgot  the  aspects  of  his 
We  which  would  not  have  been  pleasant.  But  what  were 
the  laborer's  feelings?  It  is  impossible  to  tell.  It  may  be 
that  he  had  the  respect  for  me  that  one  sincere  worker 
should  have  for  another — a  willingness  to  have  confidence 
in  the  integrity  of  a  man  who  works  in  another  field  whose 
conditions  he  does  not  understand.  Again,  he  may  not 
have  had  this  confidence;  he  may  have  thought  that  I  had 
a  "snap"  due  to  my  education  and  opportunities.  But 


152  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

the  manager  and  the  scholar  on  their  side  too  often  mis- 
understand the  life  of  the  manual  worker.  They  are  not 
able  to  put  themselves  in  his  place  and  appreciate  his  feel- 
ing of  being  merely  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  another, 
his  regrets  for  opportunities  never  offered,  his  lack  of  self- 
expression  in  his  work,  his  actual  privations.  And  the 
worst  of  it  is  that  the  conditions  of  modern  industrial  life 
do  not  of  themselves  lead  to  the  increase  of  better  under- 
standing between  various  types  of  workers.  The  cash- 
nexus  for  all  its  other  advantages  stands  for  an  indirect 
relation  between  classes  of  men.  All  the  more  need  is 
there,  then,  for  a  stern  rejection  of  those  unjustified  priv- 
ileges which  make  false  ideals  of  life  attractive  and  foster 
misunderstandings,  and  for  a  correction  of  those  conditions 
of  labor  which  make  it  worse  than  it  need  be. 

In  her  remarkable  little  book  called,  "Democracy  and 
Social  Ethics,"  Miss  Addams  speaks  of  the  embarrassment 
of  the  modern  charity  worker.  "Probably  there  is  no  rela- 
tion in  life  which  our  democracy  is  changing  more  rapidly 
than  the  charitable  relation — that  relation  which  obtains 
between  benefactor  and  beneficiary;  at  the  same  time 
there  is  no  point  of  contact  in  our  modern  experience  which 
reveals  so  clearly  the  lack  of  that  equality  which  democ- 
racy implies.  We  have  reached  the  moment  when  democ- 
racy has  made  such  inroads  upon  this  relationship  that 
the  complacency  of  the  old-fashioned  charitable  man  is 
gone  forever;  while,  at  the  same  time,  the  very  need  and 
existence  of  charity  denies  us  the  consolation  arid  freedom 
which  democracy  will  at  last  give."  But  surely  this  em- 
barrassment is  not  confined  to  charity.  It  is  extending  to 
all  fields.  Why  should  I  work  under  healthy  conditions 
and  do  the  things  in  which  I  am  intensely  interested  while 
so  many  are  driven  to  do  monotonous  toil  with  a  reward 


THE  ETHICS  OF  LABOR  153 

that  hardly  maintains  their  families  under  living  condi- 
tions? Are  these  things  necessary?  I  know  that  it  is 
foolish  because  I  am  helpless  to  do  aught  but  through 
society  in  this  matter,  but  I  cannot  go  in  certain  sections 
of  the  large  industrial  cities  without  feeling  apologetic. 
Yet  I  belong  to  the  teaching  class  which  is  by  no  means 
pampered  in  this  country* 

The  only  enduring  cure  for  this  embarrassment,  which  is 
affecting  more  and  more  of  the  conscientious  people  of  our 
time,  is  justice,  that  is,  a  social  organization  in  harmony 
with  the  new  sentiment  of  respect  for  the  individual  as 
such  which  has  been  slowly  forming  during  the  last  two 
centuries.  Surely  a  finer  conscience  is  developing  among 
all  classes  and  this  will  lead  to  re-adjustments. 

The  maleficent  influence  of  traditions  is  probably  no- 
where more  active  than  in  the  sphere  of  labor.  It  is  active 
in  literature  as  we  have  seen;  but  it  is  also  effective  in 
giving  an  unhealthy  bent  to  our  education.  Can  it  be 
denied  that  there  has  been  an  undemocratic  perspective 
in  our  educational  institutions?  The  needs  of  the  actual 
factory  employee  are  disregarded;  he  is  not  shown  the 
meaning  of  the  work  he  is  doing,  it  is  not  connected  with 
the  general  life  of  the  time.  In  the  same  way,  the  history 
of  the  particular  industry  with  which  he  is  connected,  the 
evolution  of  its  technique  and  instruments  is  neglected. 
As  Miss  Addams  again  says,  "  We  apparently  believe  that 
the  working-man  has  no  chance  to  realize  life  through  his 
vocation."  The  truth  is  that  we  are  all  pseudo-aristocrats, 
and  that  the  contrast  between  relatively  idle  classes  and 
the  mass  of  the  people  lingers  on  in  various  gradations, 
reenforced  by  the  actual  economic  status  of  the  many. 
"  We  assume  that  all  men  are  searching  for  *  puddings  and 
power*  to  use  Carlyle's  phrase,  and  furnish  only  the  schools 


154  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

which  help  them  to  those  ends."  No  one  realizes  the  truth 
of  this  indictment  more  fully  than  the  instructor  in  an 
American  university.  We  can  hardly  blame  the  youth  of 
our  land  when  they  conform,  under  penalty,  to  our  social 
values,  but  it  is  surely  the  duty  of  one  who  reflects  to  chal- 
lenge the  authority  of  those  values.  The  purely  aristo- 
cratic tradition,  to  whose  origin  and  nature  I  gave  attention 
earlier,  has  been  tempered  in  our  middle-class  society  with 
its  pioneer  habits,  but  it  is  still  far  from  its  death-throes. 
Its  continued  presence  is  indicated  by  a  wrong  conception 
of  work.  Work  should  be  a  healthy  expression  of  the 
mental  and  physical  energies  of  the  individual;  like  play, 
it  should  unfold  the  instincts  and  interests  which  are  nat- 
ural to  man.  In  a  democratic  society,  it  should  possess  a 
cooperative  atmosphere  and  link  individuals  together  in 
the  achievement  of  common  social  purposes  and  the  sat- 
isfaction of  common  needs.  These  purposes  and  needs 
may  range  all  the  way  from  artistic  expression  and  in- 
tellectual curiosity  to  the  more  homely  tasks  which  spring 
from  the  necessity  of  ministering  to  the  needs  of  the  body. 
All  these  activities  should  receive  a  social  sanction  to  give 
them  standing  and  worth.  There  should  be  as  little  snob- 
bishness as  possible.  Each  worker  could  then  feel  that  he 
was  doing  something  of  recognized  value  and  this  feeling 
would  surely  suffuse  his  work  and  give  it  merit  in  his  eyes. 
There  is  no  activity  which  cannot  be  thus  caught  up  and 
connected  with  the  personality.  If  work  be  put  in  the 
proper  ethical  relation  to  the  life  of  society,  there  is  no  kind 
of  it  which  cannot  become  intrinsically  interesting.  We 
shall  some  day  realize  that  Rodin's  creed  of  art  applies 
equally  to  work:  "There  is  nothing  ugly  in  art  except  that 
which  is  without  character,  that  is  to  say,  that  which  offers 
no  outer  or  inner  truth." 


THE  ETHICS  OF  LABOR  155 

This  healthier  attitude  toward  work,  which  will  accom- 
pany a  juster  distribution  of  it  and  of  its  rewards,  will 
surely  be  followed  by  a  better  use  of  leisure.  Dreary 
toil  brings  in  its  wake,  as  a  natural  psychological  effect,  a 
feverish  search  for  irritant  pleasures  and  pastimes  into 
which  the  laborer  can  plunge  to  forget  the  weary  hours 
of  joyless  and  enforced  effort.  The  reformer  has  both 
psychological  and  sociological  facts  back  of  his  faith  that 
better  social  conditions  will  foster  an  increasing  apprecia- 
tion of  quieter  pleasures  and  nobler,  more  expressive  and 
creative  enjoyments. 

There  is  room  for  education  among  all  classes  of  society 
with  respect  to  the  wise  use  of  leisure  and  an  intelligent 
concern  for  things  which  are  really  worth  while.  It  is 
unjust  to  blame  too  severely  that  social  group  which  has 
had  less  stimulus,  less  leisure  and  less  surplus  energy. 
The  middle  class  has  been  too  ready  to  condemn  others 
for  not  doing  what  it,  itself,  has  hardly  done.  The  more 
educated  and  economically  freer  circles  of  society  must 
never  forget  that  they  have  a  prestige  which  is  a  great 
responsibility.  If  they  are  materialistic  and  unrefined 
in  their  outlook  and  enjoyments,  they  have  no  right  to 
speak  scornfully  of  those  who  pattern  themselves  after 
them  in  a  social  medium  which  makes  their  acts  appear 
grosser  than  they  really  are.  We  are  told  that  the  poor 
man  who  spends  ten  cents  on  his  pastimes  is  as  luxurious 
as  a  rich  man  who  spends  ten  dollars.  But  the  reverse 
of  this  maxim  is  also  true.  Let  the  glamor  of  prestige 
be  removed  from  my  lady's  pleasures  and  they  will  appear 
to  the  impartial  eye  as  gross  as  those  of  her  maid.  Society 
as  a  whole  must  raise  itself  to  a  higher  level.  And  per- 
haps nothing  will  be  of  greater  assistance  in  this  crusade 
than  the  attack  which  socialism  is  directing  against  the 


156  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

habit  of  estimating  men  by  what  they  have  rather  than 
by  what  they  are. 

But  the  leaders  of  socialism  as  well  as  the  rank  and  file 
must  look  to  themselves.  They  must  be  self-critical  as 
well  as  critical  of  others.  If  they  are  right  in  their  claim 
that  the  fourth  estate  is  no  longer  the  passive  lump  of 
muscle  it  once  was,  let  them  see  to  it  that  these  workers 
who  are  coming  into  their  human  birthright  of  knowledge 
and  culture  achieve  a  standard  for  themselves  in  their 
use  of  leisure.  In  this  realm  of  life,  also,  they  should  show 
a  proud  class-consciousness,  a  direction  of  class-conscious- 
ness which  would  sting  the  possessing  classes  to  the  quick. 
There  has  been  too  much  of  truth  in  the  dilettante  critic's 
gibe  that  the  rank  and  file  of  socialists  desire  only  that 
they  also  may  dine  at  the  Waldorf-Astoria. 

For  those  who  are  beginning  to  think  seriously  on  these 
questions  of  social  construction,  I  can  recommend  nothing 
better  to  read  and  ponder  over  than  the  essay  on  Recrea- 
tive Culture  by  that  wise  old  woman  and  earnest  socialist, 
Ellen  Key.  "Recreative  culture,"  she  writes,  "implies 
in  the  first  place  cultivation  of  the  faculty  of  distinguishing 
between  the  different  kinds  of  pleasure,  and,  in  the  next 
place,  the  will  to  choose  the  productive  and  reject  the  un- 
productive and  harmful.  And  while  noble  pleasure  makes 
every  moment  golden,  time  is  wasted  like  water  when 
the  object  is  to  'pass*  it."1  And  for  those  who  will- 
ingly think  of  mankind  as  unprogressive  I  would  call  at- 
tention to  her  concluding  sentence:  "Only  those  who  have 
not  perceived  that  precisely  humanity's  will  to  perfect  itself 
is  the  highest  law  of  earthly  life  can  despair  of  a  more  perfect 
humanity." 

1  Ellen  Key,  "The  Younger  Generation,"  pp.  138  and  140. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  GROWTH  OF  JUSTICE 

JUSTICE  is  pretty  generally  regarded  as  the  basic  social  \ 
virtue.  The  degree  in  which  it  is  present  is  believed  to 
measure  the  happiness  and  stability  of  a  society.  In 
fact,  the  importance  of  justice  and  the  desirability  of  its 
enforcement  are  so  universally  acknowledged  that  we 
have  such  maxims  as  Ruat  coelum,  fiat  justitia — let  justice 
be  done  though  the  heavens  fall.  The  word  has  secured 
a  majesty  and  a  genuine  social  prestige  which  would 
seem  to  augur  well  for  the  character  of  the  relations  and 
actions  which  society  permits  or  approves.  Surely  where 
justice  is  so  well  thought  of  the  citizens  can  have  little 
ground  for  complaint. 

When  we  examine  history  with  some  care,  we  discover 
that  there  has  hardly  been  a  time  when  justice  was  not 
praised  and  held  up  by  moralists  and  by  public  opinion 
as  the  essential  social  virtue.  Only  in  times  of  actual 
anarchy  when  social  standards  have  temporarily  gone 
by  the  board,  has  there  ever  existed  any  marked  tendency 
to  mock  at  justice;  and,  even  then,  the  attack  upon  it 
was  likely  to  be  covert.  It  seems  natural  for  man  to  ac- 
knowledge some  set  of  standards  which  are  called  justice 
and  to  try  to  enforce  them.  Probably  no  other  word  has 
had  more  robust  and  sterner  associations.  A  demand 
for  justice  has  been  a  sacred  demand,  something  which 
immediately  aroused  attention  if  not  sympathy. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  this  almost  universal  acknowledgement 
of  the  supreme  value  of  justice,  there  has  been  much  dif- 

157 


158  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

ficulty  in  determining  exactly  what  justice  is  and  what  it 
demands.  The  idea  of  what  justice  involves  has  varied 
from  age  to  age,  and  even  people  living  in  the  same  period 
have  been  surprised  to  discover  that  their  notion  of  what 
justice  dictated  in  particular  circumstances  or  in  regard 
to  certain  institutions  differed  from  that  held  by  other 
equally  conscientious  persons.  It  would  seem  that  justice 
has  no  fixed  character,  that  it  is  always  more  or  less  of  an 
unsolved  problem,  that  its  content  is  constantly  shifting  as 
possibilities  and  social  capacities  change.  Justice  is  a 
growing  thing,  not  something  fixed  once  for  all. 

Perhaps  nothing  is  more  startling  to  the  conventional, 
unreflective  person  than  to  find  his  assumptions,  the 
values  and  divisions  and  institutions  which  he  has  ac- 
cepted without  question,  bruskly  assailed.  Such  an  in- 
dividual has  unconsciously  fallen  into  the  mental  habit 
of  regarding  the  customary  ways  of  doing  things  as  final, 
natural  and,  as  it  were,  sacred.  His  idea  of  justice  is  his 
idea  of  what  is  usual  and  his  views  have  been  moulded  by 
his  experience  of  the  way  things  have  been  done  around 
him,  by  the  accepted  institutional  arrangements,  by 
the  familiar  legal  standards  of  right  and  wrong,  by  the 
different  kinds  of  life  lived  by  rich  and  poor.  Thus  his 
view  of  what  is  just  is  a  reflection  of  use  and  wont.  It  is 
static,  conservative,  conventional  and  scarcely  admits 
the  possibility  of  radical  changes. 

Socialism  is  essentially  a  daring  challenge  to  the  domi- 
nant notions  of  justice  characteristic  of  present-day  so- 
ciety. In  this  regard  socialism  follows  good  precedent 
since  practically  every  vital  movement  of  history  has  had 
a  re-interpretation  of  justice  as  its  main-spring.  The 
realistic  student  of  history  is  aware  that  these  re-inter- 
pretations are  the  expressions  of  changes  in  economic, 


THE  GROWTH  OF  JUSTICE  159 

political  and  general  social  conditions.  They  are  like  vistas 
which  open  before  the  traveller  as  he  climbs  a  rugged  moun- 
tain road.  At  each  new  height,  at  each  new  turn  of  the 
path,  the  scenery  alters  in  character;  what  could  not  be  seen 
before  is  now  plainly  visible.  It  is  this  widening  of  the  so- 
cial horizon,  this  progressive  enlargement  of  things  possible, 
which  the  modern  socialist  wishes  to  press  home  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  mass  of  the  people.  He  wishes  them  to 
see  that  new  conditions  bring  new  standards  into  view. 

To  look  upon  society  as  an  individual  is  at  times  sug- 
gestive. The  expert  in  education  informs  us  that  children 
develop  new  capacities  as  they  grow  older;  that  what 
was  impossible  to  them  becomes  quite  within  their  grasp. 
Demands  on  their  attention  which  would  be  absurd  when 
they  were  eight  years  of  age  are  met  without  much  diffi- 
culty when  they  are  twelve.  And  I  think  that  every  re- 
flective person  realizes  that  his  ability  to  meet  demands 
of  an  intellectual  as  well  as  of  a  practical  character  is 
constantly  growing.  Problems  which  seem  at  one  time 
to  touch  upon  the  limit  of  his  capacity  are  later  solved 
with  comparative  ease.  Capacity  is  a  thing  which  grows 
with  training  and  experience  and  the  individual's  career 
is  a  history  of  continual  steps  in  advance.  Is  it  not  essen- 
tially the  same  with  society?  Is  he  who  refuses  to  set 
problems  in  slight  advance  of  the  child's  development 
so  that  the  mind  must  raise  itself  for  a  moment  on  tiptoe 
a  good  teacher?  Is  he  a  good  statesman  who  opens  up 
no  new  horizons  and  is  afraid  to  counsel  a  step  forward? 
The  socialist  does  not  believe  that  progress  is  furthered 
by  such  refusals.  He  who  makes  no  demands  of  society, 
who  sets  no  high  standard  of  endeavor  is  not  its  best 
friend.  The  socialist  absolutely  refuses  to  be  the  timid 
sycophant  of  things  as  they  are. 


160  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

The  just  man  is  thought  of  as  the  righteous  man,  as 
the  man  who  has  a  sound  character  and  comprehensive 
ideals.  But  who  is  to  decide  what  righteousness  demands 
and  what  ideals  are  sound  and  sufficiently  comprehensive? 
The  exhortation  of  the  traditional  moralist,  to  be  just,  is 
good  so  far  as  the  intention  goes,  but  it  does  not  tell  us 
what  conduct  is  just.  Justice  as  a  personal  virtue  would 
seem  to  be  the  expression  of  a  virtuous  life  in  its  objective, 
social  relations.  But  we  have  seen  that  these  objective, 
social  relations,  these  institutional  arrangements  of  so- 
ciety are  constantly  changing  and  that  the  better  is  enemy 
of  the  best.  The  individual  must  be  conscientious  but, 
as  a  citizen,  he  must  also  be  reflective  and  critical. 

There  are  at  least  two  other  formal  meanings  of  justice 
which  must  be  considered  for  the  light  they  may  throw 
upon  its  content.  These  are  (1)  what  is  fair,  impartial, 
equitable;  (2)  the  vindication  of  the  current  standards 
of  right  by  means  of  the  courts.  Let  us  glance  at  these 
two  meanings  to  see  whether  we  can  find  a  relation  be- 
tween them  to  help  us  out  of  our  difficulty. 

When  we  say  that  justice  is  the  fair  or  the  equitable, 
does  this  answer  tell  us  what  justice  demands  in  any  partic- 
ular case?  To  assert  that  we  want  a  square  deal  may  be 
illuminating  in  so  far  as  it  shows  that  we  do  not  intend 
to  put  up  with  an  obviously  unsquare  deal — if  we  can 
help  it — but  it  hardly  points  out  in  a  revelatory  way  just 
what  is  a  square  deal.  The  reader  surely  realizes  by  now 
that,  if  justice  be  a  growth,  it  is  impossible  to  find  some 
a  priori  formula  from  which  to  deduce  its  content.  This 
meaning  of  justice  is  a  principle  in  the  sense  of  an  attitude 
which  should  guide  the  seeker  after  justice.  It  signifies 
that  justice  involves  the  elimination  of  partiality,  that 
it  cannot  permit  favoritism. 


THE  GROWTH  OF  JUSTICE  161 

Yet  it  is  impossible  to  determine  what  exactly  is  just 
in  any  particular  situation  from  this  formal  attitude, 
necessary  as  it  is.  Or,  to  put  the  problem  in  another  way, 
he  who  acts  from  partiality,  conscious  or  unconscious, 
will  do  justice  only  by  accident;  while  he  who  shuts  out 
his  private  preferences  or  advantages  is  at  least  on  the 
right  road.  Would  that  more  people  were  willing  to  do 
this!  Still  even  he  may  find  great  difficulty  in  arriving 
at  his  goal — the  path  may  curve  and  turn  and  even  dis- 
appear from  sight  in  the  most  puzzling  fashion,  so  that 
individuals  who  start  out  together  with  the  best  intention 
in  the  world  of  making  the  journey  arm  in  arm  arrive  at 
different  goals.  In  short,  it  is  easy  to  underestimate  the 
difficulty  of  deciding  what  justice  in  the  concrete  demands. 

Probably  the  most  familiar  use  of  the  term  is  that  which 
is  associated  with  the  administration  of  law.  Rights  are 
vindicated  and  duties  enforced  by  means  of  judicial  ma- 
chinery and  this  procedure  is  commonly  spoken  of  as 
justice.  To  get  justice  is  to  secure  the  official  confirmation 
of  one's  rights  and  to  have  this  decision  backed  by  the 
power  of  the  government.  Justice  in  this  third  sense  is, 
then,  an  expression  of  the  recognized  institutions,  of  the 
actions  which  are  permitted  or  condemned,  of  the  socially 
accredited  usages.  It  represents  the  principles  which 
society  has  rightly  or  wrongly  identified  with  its  well- 
being.  Now  this  overt  justice  which  is  being  constantly 
interpreted  and  applied  in  our  courts  is  the  growth  of 
centuries  of  legislation;  it  has  its  roots  in  the  customs  of 
our  ancestors  and  is  modified  by  statutes  passed  by  suc- 
cessive law-making  bodies.  As  problems  concerning  the 
relation  of  man  to  man  or  of  the  citizen  to  the  state  arose, 
these  gave  rise  to  decisions  founded  on  precedent  or  upon 
principles  harmonious  with  the  viewpoint  of  the  time. 


162  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

Every  phase  of  the  social  organization  can  thus  be  the 
object  of  laws  which  are  necessary  for  its  well-working. 
There  is  Constitutional  Law,  Canon  Law,  Common  Law, 
Criminal  Law,  the  Law  of  Corporations,  International 
Law,  etc.  These  various  divisions  of  law  show  the  uni- 
versal need  for  rules  and  methods  which  shall  be  recog- 
nized by  society  and  enforced.  When  we  think  of  these 
regulations  and  prescriptions,  we  realize  how  complex 
society  is  and  how  much  slow  experimentation  has  been 
at  work  during  the  centuries.  There  must  be  rules  for 
the  various  social  games  which  men  have  founded  and 
which  they  regard  as  necessary  for  their  welfare;  there 
must  be  ways  of  protecting  individuals  in  their  recognized 
rights  and  of  preventing  harm  from  befalling  them;  these 
rules  and  ways  constitute  the  concrete  justice  which  can 
be  formulated  and  enforced  by  law. 

But  this  legal  justice,  admirable  as  it  is  in  many  ways, 
is  by  no  means  perfect.  It  is  impossible  to  regard  it  as 
other  than  a  complex  series  of  expedients  more  or  less 
adapted  to  their  end  and  dominated  by  sentiments  and 
assumptions  which  have  nothing  final  in  their  character. 
In  the  days  before  people  were  familiar  with  the  idea  of 
change,  this  legal  justice  in  all  its  aspects  was  considered 
sacred  and  eternal.  There  was  little  questioning  of  the 
fitness  of  the  punishments  exacted  from  the  violator  of 
the  criminal  code;  the  judge  passed  sentence  with  an  easy 
conscience  while  the  condemned  accepted  his  fate  as  some- 
how an  inevitable  decree.  At  least,  this  was  the  usual 
attitude  although  a  dim  protest  against  the  injustice  of 
human  justice  must  now  and  then  have  arisen  in  the  mind 
of  the  victim  or  of  some  of  the  more  humane  spectators. 
Thus  there  has  always  been  a  vision  of  a  justice  beyond 
the  actual  justice. 


THE  GROWTH  OF  JUSTICE  163 

This  puzzling  conflict  of  justice  with  justice,  of  the 
actual  justice  with  that  finer  justice  which  pushes  its  way 
to  the  front  and  gradually  brings  about  a  modification  of 
the  code  is  commonly  thought  of  as  the  opposition  between 
justice  with  its  stern  and  impersonal  demands  and  the 
gentler  urgings  of  mercy  and  sympathy.  The  law  is  con- 
ceived of  as  just  in  some  mysterious  way,  and  as  having  a 
sanctity  and  dignity  which  it  is  a  kind  of  treason  to  chal- 
lenge, but  yet  too  harsh  and  strict  for  human  nature  as  it 
is.  Consequently,  the  ideal  of  tempering  justice  with 
mercy  arises  long  before  there  is  a  suspicion  that  the  jus- 
tice which  needs  such  tempering  is  not  justice  at  its  best. 
But  this  subterfuge  by  means  of  which  the  truth  and  dig- 
nity of  a  formal  and  too  harsh  justice  is  kept  from  overt 
criticism  has  lost  its  usefulness  in  these  later  days  when 
such  a  large  percentage  of  men  are  recognizing  the  in- 
adequacy of  the  old  forms  and  methods  of  justice.  It  is 
being  frankly  recognized  that  the  attainment  of  an  ad- 
equate justice  is  not  an  easy  thing  and  that  the  fixed  ideas 
of  goodness  and  badness  and  of  the  righteousness  of  pun- 
ishment for  its  own  sake  previously  held  are  no  longer 
tenable.  Justice  is  coming  to  be  a  problem  which  the 
wisest  and  kindliest  minds  are  trying  hard  to  solve,  rather 
than  a  code  which  must  not  be  questioned.  Thus  the 
third  meaning  of  the  term,  also,  turns  out  to  be  indefinite. 
It  would  appear  that  this  justice  to  which  so  many  appeal 
as  the  final  arbiter  of  human  relations  must  first  be  found. 
Pilate  asked  "What  is  Truth?";  we  are  at  last  beginning 
to  ask  ourselves  a  twin  question,  "  What  is  justice?  "  And 
this  increasing  acknowledgement  that  it  is  a  problem  is  one 
of  the  most  hopeful  signs  of  progress.  * 

Justice  would  seem,  then,  to  be  a  growth,  something*    \ 
which  is  continually  being  bettered  as  the  result  of  more  \  i 


164  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

knowledge  and  of  finer  sentiments.  Let  us  see  whether  we 
can  discover  any  principles  and  tendencies  at  work  guiding 
this  growth,  so  that  we  may  venture  a  prophecy  of  its 
future  content. 

The  customary  division  of  justice  is  that  adopted  by 
Aristotle  in  his  "  Ethics."  Justice  is  either  distributive  or 
retributive.  Distributive  justice  concerns  itself  with  the 
assignment  of  social  rewards  of  various  kinds,  such  as 
income,  honors,  reputation,  etc;  while  retributive  or,  as  we 
prefer  to  call  it  to-day,  corrective  justice  has  to  do  with 
the  treatment  meted  out  by  society  to  offenders.  This 
division  is  pretty  obvious  and  self-explanatory.  A  study 
of  the  growth  of  corrective  justice  will  prepare  us  to  appre- 
ciate better  the  change  in  our  notions  of  distributive  jus- 
tice which  seems  to  be  upon  us. 

In  early  times,  the  tribal  group  controlled  the  conduct 
of  its  members  in  accordance  with  usages  which  had  slowly 
grown  up  on  the  basis  of  vague  utilities  and  even  of  super- 
stitions. Since  life  was  comparatively  simple  and  quite 
stable,  the  problems  which  arose  were  easily  solved  and 
such  acts  of  justice  as  there  were  consisted  of  the  appli- 
cation of  accepted  customs.  Only  as  life  became  more 
complex  and  new  possibilities  opened  out  did  justice  be- 
come at  times  obscure  and  perplexing. 

At  first,  private  or  family  revenge  was  the  accepted 
method  of  dealing  with  grievances.  The  so-called  lex 
talionis,  the  return  of  a  blow  for  a  blow,  the  demand  of 
an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,  ruled  supreme. 
In  the  Norse  Sagas,  for  instance,  we  find  a  society  practi- 
cally at  this  stage.  The  individual  who  had  been  injured 
by  another  sought  to  compass  his  death  or,  failing  in  this, 
endeavored  to  get  the  folkmoot  to  outlaw  his  enemy  so 
that  he  might  be  robbed  of  all  social  protection.  Grad- 


THE  GROWTH  OF  JUSTICE  165 

ually  retributive  justice  was  taken  in  hand  by  the  social 
group  in  a  formal  manner  and  the  right  to  private  revenge 
banned  because  it  was  discovered  that  it  led  to  blood- 
feuds  and  all  sorts  of  internal  dissensions.  The  power  and 
safety  of  the  tribe  required  the  suppression  of  those  cus- 
toms which  would  be  apt  to  weaken  it  in  comparison  with 
its  rivals.  Thus  a  certain  broad  social  utility  presided  at 
the  birth  of  law. 

As  time  went  on,  the  need  for  a  clear  statement  of  the 
various  usages  which  had  grown  up  rather  at  haphazard 
was  felt.  Favoritism,  ambiguity,  conflicts  between  the 
new  and  the  old,  and  the  rise  of  new  situations  forced  the 
social  group,  now  approaching  the  size  of  a  nation,  to  pass 
to  the  higher  stage  of  written  laws.  We  possess  pretty 
detailed  knowledge  of  the  passage  of  a  society  to  this 
second  stage  in  the  case  of  the  Greeks.  The  ideal  which 
more  or  less  consciously  lies  back  of  this  advance  was 
well  expressed  by  Euripides, — 

"With  written  laws,  the  humblest  in  the  State 
Is  sure  of  equal  justice  with  the  great." 

Would  that  this  ideal  were  always  reached !  These  definite 
public  laws  were  felt  to  offer  a  security  which  custom  with 
its  caste  of  interpreters  could  not  guarantee. 

During  the  early  years  of  its  growth,  law  was  guided  by 
the  desire  of  those  in  authority  to  build  up  a  stable,  social 
organization  in  accordance  with  the  institutions  and  ideas 
of  the  period.  In  medieval  Europe,  for  instance,  order 
was  never  far  removed  from  chaos :  the  church,  the  various 
small  states  and  principalities  were  forced  to  work  for 
some  degree  of  unity  and  for  the  suppression  of  crime  and 
disorder.  The  purpose  was  a  laudable  one,  but  the  times 
were  rough  and  violent  and  the  law  had  to  be  harsh  and 


166  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

formal.  Justice  had  an  iron  hand  and  an  unpitying  eye. 
Unfortunately,  class-rule  existed  and  made  itself  felt  in 
the  administration  of  justice.  Status  and  authority  were 
stressed  and  the  law  was  used  to  maintain  the  relations 
upon  which  feudal  society  was  founded.  Class-feeling 
together  with  the  roughness  and  lack  of  sensibility  of  the 
age  led  to  barbarous  punishments  such  as  mutilation  and 
the  rack.  Order  was  supposed  to  rest  on  terror  and  there 
was  little  scruple  in  resorting  to  extreme  punishments  for 
the  slightest  offences. 

This  traditional  justice  was  formal,  external,  ultra-severe 
and  punitive.  We  have  made  great  advances  of  recent 
years  but  it  is  well  to  know  something  of  early  justice  in 
order  to  realize  the  need  there  was  for  improvement.  Still 
it  will  not  pay  us  to  linger  long  upon  this  contrast.  I 
shall  therefore  refer  only  to  that  wonderful  criticism  of  the 
old  justice  made  by  Anatole  France  in  his  book  entitled, 
"The  Opinions  of  M.  Jerome  Coignard."  A  servant  who 
has  stolen  some  lace  in  order  to  deck  herself  out  before 
her  lover  is  captured.  She  immediately  confesses  her  crime 
but  is  tortured  for  one  or  two  hours  nevertheless.  After- 
wards, she  is  sentenced  to  be  hung.  The  little  bailiff  who 
relates  this  story  to  M.  Coignard  looks  upon  the  whole 
affair  with  pleasure  rather  than  the  reverse.  Then  comes 
the  terrible  story  of  the  punishment  of  Helene  Gillet, 
aged  twenty-two  years.  For  those  who  think  this  tale 
overdrawn,  it  may  be  enough  to  recall  the  historical  fact 
that  "Even  as  late  as  1813,  a  proposal  to  change  the  pen- 
alty for  stealing  five  shillings  from  death  to  transportation 
to  a  remote  colony,  was  defeated  in  England." 

The  purpose  of  justice  has  hitherto  been  dominantly 
deterrent  and  negative  and  its  presupposition  the  entire 
satisfactoriness  of  the  social  conditions  which  it  has  had 


THE  GROWTH  OF  JUSTICE  167 

to  guard.  It  has  worked  within  the  stiff  framework  of 
things  as  they  are  and  followed  obediently  the  classifica- 
tions and  categories  laid  down  by  tradition.  Theft  was 
theft  and  murder  was  murder  and  carried  the  same  dire 
penalty  whatever  the  circumstances.  The  majesty  of  the 
law  had  to  be  upheld  at  whatever  cost  and  the  proper 
policing  of  society  maintained.  The  application  of  the  law 
was  mainly  a  problem  in  classification  and  the  particular 
individual  involved  possessed  little  or  no  interest  for  his 
own  sake.  Unless  he  was  too  obviously  non  compos  mentis, 
the  conditions  which  surrounded  him  and  influenced  him 
to  the  commission  of  the  crime  were  not  taken  into  account. 
Thus  justice  was  by  no  means  subtle  in  anything  but  its 
technicalities.  It  punished  to  uphold  its  over-sensitive 
majesty  and,  if  I  mistake  not,  to  satisfy  the  cry  for  revenge 
which  goes  up  from  society.  Crimes  against  property  have 
been  far  too  severely  punished,  showing  a  class  animus 
and  selfish  fear  which  is  ethically  reprehensible.  United 
to  these  shortcomings  were  the  neglect  of  motives  and  the 
concern  for  mere  external  facts  and  the  almost  total  dis- 
regard of  the  social  causes  at  work  leading  to  crime.  Jus- 
tice was  thus  mechanical,  formal  and  external. 

Now  this  connection  of  rigidity  and  repression  was  not 
accidentalrwfTef ever  'reason  is  not  allowed  free  play,  the 
method  of  social  control  resorted  to  is  always  fear  and 
its  companion,  enforced  respect  for  those  in  authority. 
Legal  justice  is  not  interested  in  the  individual  but  in  the 
maintenance  of  order  and,  just  because  the  individual  is 
considered  primarily  as  a  means,  he  is  not  studied  and 
understood.  The  consequence  has,  only  too  often,  been  a 
real  miscarriage  of  justice  in  so  far  as  more  harm  was  done 
to  the  individual  than  good  to  society.  In  the  hope  of 
protecting  property  for  instance,  life  after  life  has  been 


168  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

brutalized  and  destroyed.  This  melancholy  result  has 
flowed  inevitably  from  the  false  perspective  dominating 
the  older  forms  of  justice.  Property  might  well  have  been 
better  protected  if  it  had  not  been  exalted  too  much. 

Let  us  note  some  of  the  errors  of  the  old  justice  con- 
sequent upon  its  punitive  attitude  and  formal  methods. 
In  the  first  place,  its  impartiality  was  more  apparent  than 
real.  To  treat  a  youth,  who  has  committed  his  first  crime 
from  motives  which  are  not  at  all  criminal,  practically 
like  a  hardened  criminal  is  to  neglect  vital  differences. 
Such  superficial  formality  of  treatment  was  possible  only 
because  the  idea  of  punishment  was  uppermost  in  the 
mind  of  society;  and  this  attitude  meant  that  human 
beings  were  not  valued  very  highly.  To-day  we  are  more 
willing  to  let  the  dead  bury  their  dead  and  to  look  for- 
ward into  the  future;  in  other  words,  justice  is  being  filled 
with  human  sympathy  and  is  becoming  keenly  interested 
in  persons  and  their  future  possibilities.  To  make  an 
individual  a  valuable  member  of  society  by  wise  measures 
is  beginning  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  triumph.  Justice  is  be- 
coming prospective  instead  of  retrospective,  concrete  and 
human  in  place  of  formal  and  hard,  corrective  and  psycho- 
logical rather  than  punitive.  The  focus  of  interest  is 
changing  from  the  crime  to  the  criminal. 

The  formal,  punitive  justice  of  the  past  committed 
many  absurdities  just  because  it  was  so  short-sighted.  We 
have  already  mentioned  the  treatment  of  novices  in  crime 
who  were  led  to  it  by  a  variety  of  causes  which  were  hardly 
at  all  discriminated.  The  lad  who  fell  under  the  domina- 
tion of  some  hardened  bravado,  the  boy  who  stole  bread  in 
order  to  feed  his  brothers  and  sisters,  the  mere  youth  who 
was  led  to  commit  certain  depredations  because  the  street- 
gang  to  which  he  belonged  had  drifted  into  doing  them 


THE  GROWTH  OF  JUSTICE  169 

were  all  treated  in  much  the  same  way.  Sentenced  to 
prison,  the  result  was  that  they  became  outlaws  asso- 
ciating with  other  outlaws  bitter  against  society.  It 
would  almost  seem  that  society  took  a  stupid  delight  in 
making  criminals.  Could  anything  be  more  irrational? 
Society  acted  like  the  scorpion  of  popular  myth  which 
stings  itself  in  its  rage.  Another  stupidity  is  less  often 
noticed  even  to-day.  Is  it  sensible  to  give  hardened  crim- 
inals an  arbitrary  sentence  and  then  to  let  them  loose  upon 
society?  Either  they  should  be  kept  under  surveillance 
or  else  treated  in  a  way  to  make  them  become  self-respect- 
ing citizens  able  to  earn  a  living.  Society  is  reflecting 
upon  these  things  to-day,  but  the  reason  is  that  the  per- 
spective of  justice  has  almost  completely  changed.  Is  it 
not  evident  that  justice  is  a  growing  thing,  not  something 
fixed  and  definite  which  can  be  deduced  from  eternal 
principles? 

Society  is  so  well  founded  by  now  that  the  chief  pur- 
pose of  justice  can  no  longer  be  regarded  as  merely  pro- 
tection against  violence  and  anarchy.  So  long  as  society 
and  individuals  are  imperfect,  protection  will  always 
have  its  place  but,  let  us  hope,  a  diminishing  place.  The 
general  decencies  of  life  perpetuate  themselves  almost 
automatically  and  the  causes  of  many  crimes  are  such 
that  society  cannot  help  matters  very  much  by  a  merely 
legal  interference.  The  reason  for  this  is  that  many  deeds 
are  instigated  by  causes  which  are  unlikely  to  recur  in 
the  individual's  life  and  which  he  probably  regrets  even 
more  than  society  at  large  does.  Justice  must  become 
more  indirect  and  subtle  and  reside  in  the  general  spirit 
of  society.  I  think  it  has  been  a  mistake  to  suppose  that 
law  can  do  very  much  in  certain  aspects  of  human  life. 
There  has  been  something  naive  in  the  popular  assump- 


170  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

tion  that  all  the  ills  society  is  heir  to  can  be  cured  by 
courts.  It  is  visibly  an  inheritance  from  the  punitive 
prejudices  of  the  old,  non-psychological  justice. 

We  shall  continue  to  seek  to  deter  individuals  from 
actions  which  are  injurious  to  others  but  we  shall  as  a 
rule  trust  to  other  means  than  we  have  in  the  past.  Just 
as  in  medicine,  prophylaxis  is  continuously  rising  into 
more  prominence  so  that  we  are  less  proud  of  curing  the 
sick  than  of  preventing  sickness,  so  in  concrete  justice 
we  shall  subordinate  even  correction  and  reformation  to 
the  establishment  of  those  healthy  conditions  which  will 
work  towards  the  elimination  of  the  so-called  criminal. 
Thus  there  are  three  stages  in  the  growth  of  justice,  blind 
punishment,  correction  of  the  criminal  after  he  has  been 
made,  and  prophylaxis.  Let  us  hope  that  the  first  stage 
has  already  been  pretty  nearly  outgrown  and  that  the 
third  is  dawning.  It  is  improbable,  however,  that  preven- 
tive measures  will  ever  be  complete  enough  to  do  away 
with  the  need  for  reformation.  The  incubation  of  crime 
is  often  in  the  dark,  in  those  depths  of  the  personality 
which  are  not  open  to  public  gaze,  and  it  will  burst  forth 
without  warning.  All  society  can  do,  then,  is  to  furnish 
as  healthy  conditions  for  the  personality  as  possible  and 
supplement  these  by  subtle  and  well-thought-out  corrective 
measures  when  these  favorable  conditions  are  inadequate. 
We  shall  try  to  supply  each  individual  with  those  moral, 
economic  and  intellectual  surroundings  which  will  make 
his  aggression  upon  others  semi-pathological;  we  shall 
believe  more  in  education,  social  well-being  and  the  in- 
fluence of  example,  and  far  less  in  fear.  Gradually,  society 
will  bend  its  efforts  to  surround  every  individual  with  an 
atmosphere  of  positive  justice,  that  is,  with  those  freedoms 
which  encourage  a  vigorous  and  healthy  personality,  a 


THE  GROWTH  OF  JUSTICE  171 

sane  mind  in  a  sane  body.  Law  like  medicine  will  pass 
from  the  treatment  of  effects  to  the  discovery  and  rooting 
out  of  causes. 

There  is  nothing  very  prophetic  or  revolutionary  about 
this  view  of  justice  in  these  days,  for  noble  men  and  women 
are  already  acting  upon  it  and  seeking  to  re-organize  our 
courts  and  social  institutions  in  the  light  of  their  clearer 
vision  of  the  best  methods  to  be  adopted  by  society.  Their 
efforts  are  as  yet  tentative  and  experimental,  however, 
and  there  is  need  for  a  wider  knowledge  of  the  logic  back 
of  their  program.  A  clear  realization  of  the  futility  and 
actual  injustice  of  the  old  justice  will  aid  greatly  the  ad- 
vance of  the  new  justice. 

An  example  of  the  methods  and  ideals  of  the  social 
experiments  being  made  along  these  broader,  more  con- 
structive lines  may  put  the  matter  in  a  clearer  light.  Ab- 
stract analysis  usually  needs  supplementation  of  this  kind 
to  make  its  import  and  bearing  unmistakable.  The  Juve- 
nile Courts  which  are  springing  up  in  every  direction  repre- 
sent efforts  to  meet  social  problems  in  a  scientific  way. 
The  attempt  is  made  to  understand  the  boy  and  to  get  his 
confidence  and  then  to  analyze  his  case  and  work  out  a 
remedy.  Boys  are  now  seen  to  drift  into  crimes  of  a  minor 
kind  almost  unconsciously  through  those  instincts  and 
tendencies  which,  under  other  circumstances,  would  find 
healthy  expression.  In  other  words,  our  congested  cities 
with  their  lack  of  playgrounds  are  not  fit  places  for  chil- 
dren. The  methods  of  the  social  worker  are  united  with 
the  authority  of  the  kindly,  shrewd-eyed  judge  and  the 
result  is  an  astonishingly  large  number  of  reformations. 
Society  has  let  human  material  run  to  waste  for  lack  of 
care  and  sympathetic  treatment  and  has  contented  itself 
with  weeding  out  the  dangerous  products  of  its  own  neg- 


172  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

lect.  But  boys  and  girls  do  not  furnish  the  only  field  for 
these  more  far-sighted  ministrations  of  the  wiser  attitude 
of  justice.  In  many  European  cities,  labor  disputes  are 
investigated  and  settled  along  equitable  lines  with  as  little 
appeal  to  the  traditional  court  methods  as  possible.  Even 
the  presence  of  an  attorney  is  not  desired.  In  this  country 
again,  the  Court  of  Domestic  Relations  inaugurated  in 
Chicago  as  the  result  of  the  efforts  of  a  group  of  women 
under  the  leadership  of  Jane  Addams,  is  an  excellent  ex- 
ample of  the  spirit  of  the  new  departure.  Miss  Tarbell, 
who  describes  its  work,  writes  as  follows :  "  Punishment  was 
the  key  to  the  old  treatment.  If  a  man  or  woman  was 
found  guilty  of  breaking  some  one  or  another  of  the  laws 
of  marriage,  the  practice  had  been  to  deal  to  him  the 
punishment  the  law  prescribed.  The  judges  of  the  Munic- 
ipal Court  knew  well  enough  how  futile  as  a  rule  the  pun- 
ishment was,  how  almost  invariably  the  one  result  was  to 
make  the  breach  in  the  family  wider.  They  now  broke 
utterly  with  the  old  formula  and  laid  down  a  new  aim  for 
the  court:  'To  make  itself  equally  as  good  an  agent  to 
keep  husband  and  wife  together  and  thus  give  the  children 
the  home  influence,  as  it  had  been  an  agent  in  separating 
them.'"  How  long  it  has  taken  experience  and  reflection 
to  arrive  at  this  seemingly  obvious  conclusion.  Habits 
and  attitudes  have  a  tremendous  power  so  that  men's  eyes 
are  withholden  from  the  wise  and  truly  just  course. 

The  conflict  between  the  spirit  and  the  letter  of  the 
justice  of  any  epoch  is  commonly  expressed  as  the  contrast 
between  equity  and  legal  or  formal  justice.  Equity,  as 
Aristotle  pointed  out,  is  a  sort  of  justice;  it  is  an  attempt  to 
better  formal  or  technical  justice.  We  may  say  that  it 
represents  the  leaven  of  sane  ethical  criticism  within  the 
general  ordering  of  affairs  by  rule  and  thus  bears  witness 


THE  GROWTH  OF  JUSTICE  173 

to  an  inadequacy  either  in  the  general  principles  in  force 
or  in  the  method  of  their  application.  When  the  breach 
between  what  is  felt  to  be  just  and  the  actual  course  taken 
is  too  marked,  the  sense  of  equity  becomes  the  instigator 
of  radical  changes.  Hence  the  ideal  of  equity  stands  for 
progress  in  the  principles  of  justice  and  plasticity  in  their 
application. 

One  of  the  signs  of  this  awakening  sense  of  the  equities 
is  the  growing  protest  against  the  over- valuation  of  tech- 
nical forms  of  procedure.  It  is  seen  that  these  forms,  when 
reenforced  by  this  veneration,  are  even  more  apt  to  hinder 
the  administration  of  justice  than  to  further  it.  But  an- 
other and  deeper  sign  is  the  recognition  of  the  wrong  done 
in  pitting  a  clever  attorney  with  his  reputation  to  make 
against  some  poor  creature  who  has  not  the  money  to 
hire  an  able  defender  and  not  the  wits  to  explain  himself. 
Law  has  too  often  become  a  forensic  battle  between  cel- 
ebrated criminal  lawyers  who  are  fighting,  not  for  justice, 
but  for  money  and  reputation.  The  experiment  begun  by 
the  city  of  Los  Angeles  to  maintain  a  public  defender  is 
thus  a  mark  of  a  clearer  view  of  the  true  dignity  of  law. 
The  time  may  come  when,  as  Professor  Hobhouse  suggests, 
there  will  be  a  demand  for  the  abolition  of  the  power  of 
money  to  purchase  skilled  advocacy.1  What  a  revolution 
such  a  change  would  bring  about  in  the  legal  profession! 
It  almost  takes  a  socialist  even  to  dream  of  it.  To  socialize 
justice,  to  apply  psychological  methods,  to  see  men  in  their 
concrete  social  relations,  to  study  character  and  actions  in 
an  objective,  truly  scientific  way,  to  be  interested  only  in 
the  best  treatment  of  the  individual  for  his  own  and  so- 
ciety's sake :  what  a  different  court-room,  what  differently 
trained  lawyers  and  judges  such  a  program  would  require. 
1  "Liberalism,"  p.  25. 


THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

We  may  say,  then,  that  the  new  justice  concerns  itself 
fwith  causes  and  conditions  and  seeks  to  control  these  in 
I  the  light  of  what  it  conceives  ought  to  be.  And  this 
teleological  or  purposive  character  which  is  coming  to  the 
front  makes  it  lose  the  old  formal  definiteness  which  it  had 
hi  the  era  when  it  had  only  punishment  in  mind.  And, 
inevitably,  corrective  justice  finds  that  it  is  bound  up  with 
distributive  justice,  with  the  social  arrangements  and  in- 
stitutions which  control  men's  lives.  Thus  it  is  this  larger 
relationship  which  makes  justice  to-day  so  tantalizing 
and  so  challenging.  Slowly,  men  are  realizing  that  it 
reaches  down  to  the  very  foundations  of  society  and  that 
rights  and  customs  which  they  have  taken  for  granted  can 
no  longer  be  so  taken  but  must  be  carefully  examined  in 
the  light  of  larger  ideals.  Justice  is  not  a  static  thing  whose 
place  and  magnitude  can  be  calculated  by  mathematics  or 
by  deduction  from  Blackstone,  but  a  growing  thing  whose 
size  and  structure  depend  on  the  economic  and  ethical 
development  of  society. 

It  would  be  easy  to  show  why  a  true  corrective  justice 
which  aims  at  prevention  rather  than  punishment  must 
rest  upon  distributive  justice.  Let  the  conservative  lay 
as  much  stress  as  he  likes  upon  the  natural  criminality 
of  mankind  and  the  old-fashioned  criminologist  upon  the 
criminal  type,  they  yet  cannot  deny  that  the  slums  nourish 
the  larger  percentage  of  criminals.  Poverty,  ugly  sur- 
roundings, mal-nutrition,  lack  of  family  control,  false 
ideals  nourished  by  unjust  contrasts,  all  these  work  to- 
wards the  inevitable  result.  The  criminal  is  in  large 
measure  a  product  of  society  and  the  new  justice  demands 
that  society  cease  to  permit  those  conditions  which  are 
seen  to  produce  him.  At  the  very  least,  let  it  take  proper 
precautions  and  not  force  the  mentally  and  physically 


THE  GROWTH  OF  JUSTICE  175 

unfit  to  battle  in  a  fierce  arena  and  then  punish  them  when 
they  do  not  observe  the  rules  which  they  hardly  under- 
stand or  else  rightly  resent. 

But  corrective  justice  has  concerned  itself  up  to  now 
only  with  the  police  aspect  of  justice;  it  must  go  deeper 
to  the  positive  arrangements  of  society  and  in  so  doing  it 
necessarily  becomes  distributive  or  constructive.  It  must 
seek  to  mould  institutions  in  accordance  with  the  ethical 
sentiments  which  are  beginning  to  prevail. 

The  dawning  of  a  new  apprehension  of  social  or  distrib- 
utive justice  is  usually  connected  with  a  watchword.  Thus 
the  workman  of  to-day  who  adopts  as  his  motto  the 
phrase,  "Justice  and  not  charity,"  is  more  or  less  aware 
that  he  desires  a  social  organization  in  which  he  can  secure 
a  reward  proportional  to  his  honest  endeavor.  The 
assumption  that  he  makes  is  that  distribution  should  not 
be  a  mechanical  thing  following  from  certain  uncriticized 
and  inherited  arrangements  but  a  vital  process  governed 
so  far  as  possible  by  ethical  standards.  Of  course  he 
would  not  put  his  idea  in  this  form,  but  his  protest  really 
means  that  the  dice  are  so  loaded  that  he  does  not  get  a 
fair  chance  at  life.  And  are  not  the  dice  loaded?  Only 
when  interpreted  in  this  way  does  his  motto  have  meaning. 
If  reward  were  determined  solely  by  competition  within 
the  legal  and  institutional  arrangements  of  the  day  with 
the  control  they  exert,  and  if  this  determination  were  just 
and  these  arrangements  ethically  acceptable,  then  the 
workman  would  be  getting  what  he  deserved  and  his  motto 
would  be  useless  as  a  slogan.  Charity  would  be  a  matter  of 
supererogation,  an  affair  of  grace.  His  watchword  would 
signify  only  a  laudable  intention  to  be  satisfied  with  his 
wages  and  to  reject  anything  more.  Those  economists  who 
assert  that  the  laboring  classes  are  paid  what  they  earn 


176  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

would  find  themselves  in  complete  harmony  with  these 
individuals  about  whose  condition  they  are  theorizing. 
But  this  is  not  the  case.  The  mass  of  the  citizens  are  ask- 
ing themselves  whether  social  arrangements  are  just,  that 
is,  whether  they  lead  to  the  most  desirable  results. 

The  reaction  against  charity  which  is  so  typical  of  the 
present  reveals  a  deep-lying  change  in  social  values.  On 
the  one  hand,  the  traditional  lower  classes  are  no  longer 
satisfied  to  accept  what  gracious  hands  dole  out  from 
their  stores,  but  rebelliously  and  truculently  ask  the  source 
of  this  surplus.  "Before  we  are  grateful,  we  desire  you 
to  show  that  this  largess  is  rightly  yours  and  that  we  are 
not  dispossessed  heirs  kept  ostentatiously  by  those  who 
have  taken  our  fortunes"  is  the  import  of  the  surly  atti- 
tude so  often  marked  with  sorrow  by  the  charitable  who 
are  too  human  not  to  desire  some  manifestation  of  grati- 
tude. Suspicion  and  social  scepticism  are  stalking  abroad 
in  the  land  and  will  not  be  laid  except  by  honest  proof 
that  they  are  unjustified.  The  period  of  authority  and 
reverence  has  passed  for  ever,  and  mere  reiteration  that 
things  are  as  they  should  be  will  not  bring  it  back. 

The  workers  who  have  been  nourished  in  the  atmosphere 
engendered  by  the  incipient  democracy  of  the  present 
demand  social  relations  of  a  virile  type  stimulating  to 
their  manhood.  For  this  reason  charity  is  repugnant  to 
them.  They  feel  that  they  have  not  been  given  their 
chance  and  therefore  are  not  resigned.  Thus  the  idea 
is  spreading  that  charity  is  the  attempt  to  soften  condi- 
tions which  a  deeper  ethical  sense  would  revolt  against 
and  seek  to  cure.  God's  poor  are  now  thought  of  as 
men's  poor  and  charity  as  the  helpless  goodness  of  the  pros- 
perous to  the  helpless  poverty  of  the  wretched.  It  is  a 
true  saying  that  there  is  more  kindness  than  justice  in 


THE  GROWTH  OF  JUSTICE  177 

the  world.  But  we  are  beginning  to  ask  ourselves  whether 
this  antithesis  does  not  indicate  a  weakness  in  the  ethical 
outlook  of  the  past.  We  saw  that  the  traditional  contrast 
between  justice  and  mercy  pointed  to  a  flaw  in  the  formal, 
unbending  justice  of  other  days  with  its  emphasis  on  the 
letter  rather  than  the  spirit  and  its  tendency  to  rigidity 
and  abstractness;  true  justice  is  merciful.  But  is  not  true 
kindness  just  and  adequate  justice  kind?  It  is  under  the 
stimulus  of  ideas  of  this  temper  that  the  new  justice  is 
passing  from  correction  to  prevention  and  thence  to  the 
eager  provision  of  those  social  conditions  which  will 
nourish  healthy  and  significant  lives.  It  is  to  the  study 
of  these  conditions  that  the  next  two  chapters  will  be 
devoted. 


CHAPTER  IX 
SOME  PRINCIPLES  OF  PECUNIARY  REWARD 

JUSTICE  is  an  ideal — and  a  problem.  Especially  is 
this  the  case  with  pecuniary  reward.  To  adopt  the  social 
standpoint  and  to  decide  that  the  distribution  of  rewards 
reacts  profoundly  upon  the  health  and  the  direction  of 
activity  of  society  is  but  to  set  the  problem.  Yet  even  to 
do  this  much  is  an  advance  which  should  not  be  min- 
imized. No  one  knows  better  than  the  trained  thinker  how 
important  is  the  posing  of  the  right  problem  from  the  right 
standpoint.  It  is,  indeed,  half  the  battle. 

Still  there  must  be  some  principle  or  set  of  principles 
in  harmony  with  a  virile  yet  comprehensive  morality 
to  guide  a  society  which  wishes  to  be  democratic  in  the  con- 
trol of  those  pecuniary  rewards  which  affect  men's  lives  so 
deeply.  To  seek  such  principles  and  to  formulate  them 
clearly  is  one  of  the  important  intellectual  tasks  which 
the  mature  socialist  sets  himself.  He  must  free  himself 
from  all  tendencies  to  Utopianism,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
from  intimidation  by  the  possessing  classes  on  the  other. 
And  I  know  of  nothing  more  exasperating  and,  at  the 
same  time,  impressive  than  the  smug  assurance  of  those 
who,  for  one  reason  or  another,  good  or  bad,  occupy  a 
pleasant  economic  position.  To  see  through  appearances 
to  the  realities  of  social  status  is  not  an  easy  task. 

The  reader  must  remember  that,  in  this  field,  values 
are  uppermost,  and  that  socialism  represents  a  shifting 
of  values  rather  than  a  system  of  facts  and  explanatory 
theories.  Society,  like  an  individual,  is  always  being 

178 


SOME  PRINCIPLES  OF  PECUNIARY  REWARD    179 

confronted  by  the  hazard  of  a  choice  and  all  that  it  can 
ask  is  that  the  choice  be  not  too  blind.  Further  than  this, 
knowledge  does  not  go;  and  the  series  of  decisions  which 
determine  the  direction  taken  are  expressions  of  character. 
Social  questions  can  never  be  solved  by  the  intellect  alone, 
as  are  mathematical  problems,  because  they  involve  a 
moral  selection  which  cannot  be  reduced  to  a  calculation 
of  purely  scientific  data.  We  stressed  this  fact  when  we 
were  discussing  the  relation  of  modern  socialism,  as  a 
movement,  to  the  social  sciences. 

The  distribution  of  pecuniary  reward  is  a  complex 
social  problem  which  has  -both  a  scientific  and  a  moral 
side.  And  these  aspects  are  not  so  separable  as  the  spe- 
cialist in  economics  would  like  to  have  us  believe.  As  a 
result  of  the  spread  of  education  and  of  the  slowly  in- 
creasing respect  for  the  possibilities  and  rights  of  every 
individual,  a  portion  at  least  of  public  opinion  is  beginning 
to  ask  itself  whether  society  cannot  exert  a  more  definite 
control  over  the  distribution  of  pecuniary  reward.  We 
are  demanding  why  we  should  permit  institutions  to 
remain  unchanged  which  lead  to  an  inequality  for  which 
a  study  of  the  individuals  concerned  does  not  show  ade- 
quate reason.  Are  better  arrangements  impossible  be- 
cause of  the  complexity  of  society  or  because  of  the  stu- 
pidity of  men?  Or  is  a  drastic  procedure  urged  upon  us 
by  our  ideals  and  relatively  sanctioned  by  our  knowledge? 
The  weight  of  these  questions  rests  on  the  mind  and  con- 
science of  the  time  with  crushing  force.  We  do  not  know 
how  radical  we  ought  to  be;  and,  when  we  seek  counsel, 
we  are  not  sure  to  what  voices  to  give  ear.  Age  and  posi- 
tion are  naturally  conservative  and  suspicious  of  new 
departures;  success  and  comfort  have  their  prejudices 
as  surely  as  do  failure,  poverty  and  unarrived  ability. 


180  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

We  have  reason  to  believe  that  those  who  claim  to  speak 
with  authority  are  only  giving  utterance  to  their  impres- 
sions and  bias  and  that  they  have  unconsciously  made 
assumptions  which  should  be  forced  to  defend  themselves. 
In  this  situation,  a  search  for  principles  above  the  level 
of  power,  custom  and  prejudice  is  in  order.  If  we  are  to 
believe  in  moral  progress,  we  must  hold  that  the  public 
will,  in  the  long  run,  listen  only  to  such  principles. 

The  first  distinction  we  must  make  when  we  raise 
the  question  of  pecuniary  reward  is  the  recurrent  one 
between  things  as  they  are  and  as  they  ought  to  be.  How 
is  pecuniary  reward  determined  in  society  as  it  is  at  pres- 
ent organized?  How  ought  it  to  be  determined  in  a  so- 
ciety corresponding  more  nearly  to  the  conditions  of 
justice?  These  two  questions  are  fairly  distinct  from  one 
another  and  require  different  types  of  investigation;  the 
one  is  empirical  and  factual,  the  other  empirical  and 
ethical.  Let  us  try  to  keep  this  difference  in  mind  for 
much  aimless  controversy  and  misunderstanding  have 
arisen  from  the  failure  so  to  do. 

Pecuniary  reward  is  a  larger  term  than  wages  but  it 
will  be  best  to  consider  wages  and  its  laws  first.  And  by 
laws  I  mean  the  statements  of  the  factors  which  actually 
control  the  price  of  labor  in  the  market  as  at  present  or- 
ganized. Such  laws  are  relative  to  certain  conditions 
which  are  more  or  less  under  human  control  and  must 
not  therefore  be  confused  with  the  laws  formulated  by 
the  physical  scientist.  The  assimilation  of  the  laws  of 
political  economy  with  those  of  nature  and  the  hasty 
issuing  of  maxims  based  upon  them  as  something  abso- 
lute and  final  have  done  much  injury  in  the  past. 

Let  us,  first  of  all,  listen  to  what  economists  of  good 
standing  say  on  this  topic  of  the  determination  of  wages. 


SOME  PRINCIPLES  OF  PECUNIARY  REWARD    181 

I  shall  quote  them  at  some  length  and  then  summarize 
their  conclusions. 

"Labor,"  writes  Hobson,1  "stands  on  so  different  a  foot- 
ing from  the  other  factors  of  production  in  regard  to  the 
conditions  of  its  sale  that  a  separate  law  of  wages  has  often 
been  propounded.  Such  procedure,  however,  is  quite  un- 
warranted. For  the  price  of  labor  is  determined  like  the 
price  of  the  other  factors  by  considerations  of  cost  and 
scarcity  affecting  the  relation  of  the  supply  to  the  de- 
mand." But  labor  is  a  different  kind  of  factor  in  produc- 
tion than  land  or  capital  and  must  therefore  at  times  be 
treated  in  a  different  fashion.  In  order  to  get  the  best  work 
out  of  the  laborer  it  may  be  necessary  to  treat  him  in  a 
fairly  humane  fashion  just  as  a  horse  must  be  well  fed  and 
groomed  if  it  is  to  do  its  best  work.  Here  we  have  in 
germ  the  so-called  principle  of  the  economy  of  high  wages. 
But  when  we  come  to  consider  the  problem  a  little  more 
closely,  we  realize  that  there  is  something  analogous  to 
this  in  the  non-human  factors  of  production.  A  machine 
must  be  kept  well  oiled  if  it  is  to  function  satisfactorily 
and  land  must  be  well  cultivated  and  fertilized.  So  far, 
then,  as  the  economic  institutions  of  the  present  are  con- 
cerned, the  attitude  towards  the  various  factors  of  pro- 
duction is  the  same — only  this  factor  causes  more  trouble 
because  it  is  more  complex  and,  unfortunately,  has  other 
relations  in  the  social  whole. 

Professor  Chapman  presents  the  marginal  theory  of 
wages  in  his  excellent  little  book  to  which  we  have  already 
referred.  Unfortunately,  he  does  not  realize  sufficiently 
the  ambiguity  of  some  of  his  terms.  On  the  whole,  how- 
ever, his  standpoint  is  that  of  the  analytic  economist  who 
works  within  the  structure  of  the  market  as  at  present 
1  "The  Science  of  Wealth,"  p.  117. 


182  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

organized.  For  him,  also,  the  laws  of  wages  do  not  vary 
from  the  laws  of  the  other  factors  of  production.  "Our 
general  conclusion  is  that  wages  in  a  given  trade  are  settled 
by  the  marginal  worth  of  labor  in  that  trade  and  the  supply 
price  for  labor  in  the  trade,  that  is  the  wage  at  which  an 
additional  laborer  will  be  forthcoming.  The  wage  is  the 
amount  at  which  equal  quantities  of  labor  will  be  de- 
manded and  supplied.  It  may  be,  however,  that  the 
lowest  class  of  labor  has  no  supply  price — that  its  numbers 
are  independent  of  its  wages  given  sufficient  for  subsist- 
ence— in  which  case  its  wages  are  settled  finally  by  its  num- 
bers in  relation  to  the  marginal  worth  associated  with 
them."1  We  have  thus  to  do  with  a  market  so  arranged 
that  the  price  of  the  various  factors  of  production  is 
objectively  determined  by  the  part  they  play  and  their 
supply.  For  our  present  purpose  we  need  not  enter 
into  such  complexities  as  the  cooperation  of  factors  and 
their  possible  substitution  for  one  another.  What  must 
be  stressed  is  the  objective,  competitive,  non-ethical  char- 
acter of  the  determination  of  the  price  paid  in  the  market. 
We  must  frankly  recognize  that  we  are  living  to-day 
under  institutions  which  are  organized  on  a  competitive 
basis  although  they  are  surrounded  and  qualified  by  other 
institutions  such  as  inheritance  which  are  not  so  organized. 
One  of  the  clearest  statements  of  this  situation  and  its 
implications  is  to  be  found  in  Davenport's  book,  "The 
Economics  of  Enterprise."  "The  competitive  economy 
is  an  exchange  economy,  and  therefore  a  price  economy. 
Production  takes  place  typically  for  the  purposes  of  sale. 
Gain,  therefore,  is  sought  in  terms  of  price,  and  accrues  in 
terms  of  price:  All  economic  purposes  and  methods  take 
on  the  price  emphasis.  Price  becomes  the  central  and 

1  P.  177. 


SOME  PRINCIPLES  OF  PECUNIARY  REWARD    183 

pivotal  fact  in  all  industry  and  business.  The  theory  of 
price  is  thus  the  core  of  all  economic  theory;  the  rest  is 
corollary  or  application." 

Salaries  are  usually  distinguished  from  wages  and  are 
considered  to  be  compensations  paid  according  to  agree- 
ment over  longer  intervals  of  time  and  to  individuals  who 
possess  trained  ability.  Naturally  enough,  the  two  shade 
into  one  another  so  that  in  certain  cases  it  is  a  matter  of 
rather  arbitrary  choice  which  of  the  terms  be  used.  Social 
considerations  usually  enter  in  to  decide  the  question. 

Now  salaries  are  partly  controlled  by  supply  and  de- 
mand as  are  wages  but  other  factors  enter  in  to  a  greater 
extent.  The  President  of  a  University  receives,  perhaps, 
ten  thousand  dollars  but  this  amount  is  not  determined  by 
the  market  to  any  large  extent.  I  presume  that  able  men 
would  be  willing  to  have  the  power  for  good  and  evil  that 
such  a  position  brings  at  a  salary  little  if  any  higher  than 
they  are  receiving  in  what  Americans  conceive  of  as  sub- 
ordinate positions.  Granted  that  the  expenses  are  greater, 
it  still  remains  true  that  this  fact  alone  does  not  fix  the 
salary  offered.  Can  there  be  any  doubt  that  social  values, 
often  of  the  most  undemocratic  kind,  help  to  fix  the  sal- 
aries of  public  officials,  business  managers,  conspicuous 
representatives  of  trades  and  industries  in  various  fields? 
Thus  the  higher  salaries  are  buoyed  up  and  delivered  from 
competition  by  the  intrusion  of  causes  which  should  be 
outside  of  the  market.  The  lower  grades  of  salaries  are, 
on  the  other  hand,  more  and  more  subject  to  the  laws  of 
competition. 

Theoretically,  the  profits  of  business  men  are  determined 
by  competition  but,  here  again,  other  factors  intrude  to 
modify  the  result.  The  scarcity  of  business  men  leads  to 
their  power  to  take  a  larger  proportional  share  of  the  social 


184  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

product  than  seems  at  all  just  from  other  points  of  view. 
Thus  a  considerable  percentage  of  their  reward  is  due  to 
the  rent  of  a  socially  controlled  supply  of  ability  and 
knowledge.  "The  whole  profit  of  a  successful  business, 
beyond  what  is  really  minimum  wages  of  ability,  is  a  scarcity 
rent  or  surplus,  attributable,  like  every  other  surplus,  to  a 
restraint  upon  free  competition  by  limiting  the  supply  of 
the  factor  of  production  that  receives  the  surplus.  The 
conduct  of  modern  industry  lends  itself  to  this  scarcity. 
For,  though  there  is  most  likely  a  plentiful  supply  of 
efficient  business  ability  of  various  orders,  only  a  small  pro- 
portion of  its  owners  can  find  an  opportunity  of  training  and 
applying  it."  Economists  who  have  some  insight  into 
sociology  are  beginning  to  recognize  that  competition  be- 
tween the  factors  of  production  is  directed  by  social  control 
and  that  this  control  rests  in  large  measure  in  the  hands  of 
the  few.  To  better  this  control  and  to  make  it  democratic 
would  seem  to  be  the  task  of  social  justice.  The  market 
has  a  social  setting  which  the  economist  has  too  much 
ignored;  and  it  is  the  merit  of  the  socialist  that  he  sensed 
the  problem  and  insisted  on  its  reality,  even  though  his 
interpretation  of  it  was  not  technically  perfect. 

The  present  organization  of  industry  is  such  that  a  few, 
the  business  class,  have  an  influence  which  seems  to  the 
investigator  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  numbers  or 
ability.  Theirs  is  a  pivotal  position  of  great  importance, 
and  society  has  not  made  adjustments  to  meet  the  dangers 
which  inhere  hi  such  a  situation.  The  consequence  is  that 
clear-sighted  economists  like  Hobson  are  led  to  assert 
that  "a  constantly  increasing  share  of  the  'surplus'  figures 
as  net  profits  to  the  successful  'business  man.' "  Economic 
control  is  focussed  in  this  class  and  society  has  been  naive 
enough  to  assume  that  they  would  somehow  use  it  for  the 


; 


SOME  PRINCIPLES  OF  PECUNIARY  REWARD    185 

good  of  the  whole  or  that,  as  Adam  Smith  would  phrase  it, 
an  Unseen  Hand  would  guide  affairs  for  the  best  in  this 
best  of  all  possible  worlds.  Combined  with  this  simplicity 
of  outlook  which  never  doubts  that  things  are  as  they 
should  be  has  been  a  naive  worship  of  the  business  man 
in  a  society  which,  when  the  best  is  said,  occupies  a  rel- 
.atively  low  intellectual  and  ethical  level.  As  Mr.  Lowes 
Dickenson  remarks,  we  have  very  much  over-estimated 
the  business  type  and  the  business  man.  The  vulgar  self- 
admiration  of  our  Joe  Bounderbys  and  the  unimaginative 
commercialism  of  our  Thomas  Gradgrinds  have  either 
captured  the  mind  of  the  people  or  made  them  feel  their 
helplessness.  With  slight  changes,  what  Miss  Addams 
considers  the  attitude  of  the  poor  towards  the  rich  holds 
all  through  society.  "The  rich  landlord  is  he  who  collects 
with  sternness,  who  accepts  no  excuse,  and  will  have  his 
own.  There  are  moments  of  irritation  and  of  real  bitter- 
ness against  him,  but  there  is  still  admiration,  because  he  is 
rich  and  successful.1"  Money  talks  everywhere  and  its 
mere  presence  tends  to  be  its  justification.  It  is  within 
this  social  atmosphere  that  the  valuation  of  the  business 
man  has  taken  place.  We  Americans  have  our  recognized 
kings  and  captains  and  our  ruling  class. 

What  I  have  tried  to  bring  out  in  this  discussion  of 
actual  pecuniary  reward  is  the  undeniable  fact  that  the 
social  organization  as  a  whole  with  its  institutions  and 
opinions  automatically  controls  the  distribution  of  the 
national  income.  Let  us  see  what  the  result  has  been. 
There  are  signs  that  we  are  getting  ashamed  of  this  result 
and  would  like  to  change  it — a  wish  which  is  as  yet  more 
sentimental  than  real;  for,  as  I  have  tried  to  show  in  the 
Ethics  of  Work,  the  tradition  of  a  leisure  class  is  still  strong 
among  us. 


186  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

In  order  to  escape  the  complaint  that  I  am  overdrawing 
the  economic  situation,  I  shall  confine  myself  to  quotations 
from  authorities  on  the  subject.  I  have  tried  to  point  out 
the  letting  up  of  competitive  forces  as  we  move  upward 
from  the  day-laborer  to  the  business  man;  but  this  fact 
can  be  understood  only  when  the  non-competitive  char- 
acter of  the  social  setting  is  appreciated.  To  this  should 
be  added  a  clearer  idea  of  just  what  capital  is;  we  are  too 
apt  to  conceive  of  it  in  terms  of  material  goods  whereas 
anything  which  is  the  foundation  of  credit  is  capital. 
Genuine  social  wealth  and  capital  are  by  no  means  the 
same. 

Spahr's  "  Present  Distribution  of  Wealth  in  the  United 
States"  estimates  that  seven  eighths  of  the  families  in  the 
United  States  own  only  one  eighth  of  the  wealth,  and 
that  one  per  cent  own  more  than  the  remaining  ninety- 
nine  per  cent.  This  has  been  challenged,  but  any  estimate 
made  by  economists  shows  such  enormous  dispropor- 
tion as  to  make  it  incredible  that  the  present  distribu- 
tion can  be  regarded  as  just  on  any  definition  of  justice 
other  than  "  according  to  the  principles  of  contract  and 
competition!"  1  We  have  seen  how  extensively  the  prin- 
ciple of  competition  has  been  qualified  by  our  social  in- 
stitutions and  system  of  class  control.  Let  us  look  at  the 
details  of  the  distribution.  "Out  of  the  107  billions  of 
material  wealth,  18j/£  billions  are  reported  as  current 
products — clothing,  personal  ornaments,  furniture,  car- 
riages. (I  leave  the  reader  to  consider  the  probable  dis- 
tribution of  this  portion.)  Of  the  remaining  89  billions, 
2  billions  are  coin  and  bullion.  Of  the  remaining  87  bil- 
lions, 62  billions  are  land  and  improvements  and  16  billions 
are  accounted  for  as  public  utility  corporations;  8  billions 
1  Dewey  and  Tufts,  "Ethics,"  p.  545. 


SOME  PRINCIPLES  OF  PECUNIARY  REWARD    187 

remain  for  live  stock  and  industrial  equipment."  1  Analyz- 
ing these  classes  of  wealth,  we  find  some  interesting  re- 
sults. "Now  of  the  62  billions  of  land  and  improvement, 
it  is  estimated  that  there  are  41  billions  of  unearned  in- 
crement, that  is  to  say,  values  due  to  the  growth  of  the 
communities  and  to  speculation.  The  last  tax  report 
for  Illinois  gives  the  town  and  city  lots  as  assessed  at 
24  times  the  farm  values.  Estimating,  also,  the  value 
of  rights  of  way,  of  user  and  of  terminals,  for  the  rail- 
roads and  tramways,  express  companies,  electric  light 
and  telegraph  companies,  it  is  probably  not  wide  of  the 
truth  to  say  that  one  half  of  the  18  billion  value  of  public 
service  corporations  represents  merely  social  values." 
Mr.  Davenport's  conclusion  is  that  "Five  ninths  of  the 
durable  wealth  reported  by  the  census  is  made  up  of 
privately  appropriated  social  wealth."  Now  this  is  a 
pretty  sane  estimate  by  a  man  who  is  radical  but  not  an 
overt  socialist.  His  comment  is  interesting:  "  Were 
society  later  to  make  as  great  a  botch  of  socialism  as  it 
has  thus  far  made  of  competition,  socialism  would  present 
the  nightmare  of  all  the  ages."  The  truth  is  that  we  have 
not  had  competition  but  special  privileges.  The  belief 
of  the  socialist  is  that  were  these  special  privileges  with 
their  vicious  allurements  removed  more  people  would 
be  in  favor  of  cooperation.  However  that  may  be,  so- 
cialist and  true  liberal  are  agreed  in  regard  to  the  un- 
satisfactoriness  of  the  present  distribution  of  income  and 
the  social  institutions  and  customs  which  are  responsible 
for  it.  There  are  mal-adjustments  which  leave  unmerited 
poverty  at  the  foundation  of  society  and  unmerited  abun- 
dance at  the  top. 

As  a  preparation  for  the  study  of  the  question,  How 
1  Davenport,  "The  Economics  of  Enterprise,"  p.  520. 


188  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

ought  pecuniary  reward  to  be  determined? — we  have 
sought  to  gain  some  knowledge  of  the  actual  distribution 
of  income  and  of  some  of  the  principles  which  control  it. 
Probably  John  Stuart  Mill's  famous  summary  of  the 
economic  situation  in  England  in  his  day  is  still  near  the 
truth :  "  If  the  choice  were  to  be  made  between  communism 
with  all  its  chances,  and  the  present  state  of  society  with 
all  its  sufferings  and  injustices,  if  the  institution  of  private 
property  necessarily  carried  with  it,  as  a  consequence, 
that  the  produce  of  labor  should  be  apportioned,  as  we 
now  see  it,  almost  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  labor, — the  largest 
portions  to  those  who  have  not  worked  at  all,  the  next 
largest  to  those  whose  work  is  almost  nominal,  and  so  in 
descending  scale,  the  remuneration  dwindling  as  the  work 
grows  harder  and  more  disagreeable,  until  the  most  fa- 
tiguing and  exhausting  bodily  labor  cannot  count  with 
certainty  on  being  able  to  earn  even  the  necessaries  of 
life, — if  this,  or  communism,  were  the  alternative,  all  the 
difficulties,  great  or  small,  of  communism  would  be  but 
as  dust  in  the  balance."  It  would  seem  that  artificial 
scarcities  and  privileges  of  one  sort  or  other  have  aided 
to  maintain  a  distribution  which  conflicts  with  the  ideas 
of  justice  which  are  gradually  unfolding  in  society. 

When  we  come  to  search  for  principles  of  pecuniary 
reward,  we  soon  realize  that  they  are  relative  to  the  whole 
situation  of  society  and  that  there  can  be  nothing  abso- 
lute in  their  pronouncements.  What,  for  instance,  is  the 
relation  between  pecuniary  rewards  and  other  rewards 
like  security  and  leisure?  Does  the  adulation  of  wealth 
as  against  personal  capacity  and  wise  activity  make  varia- 
tions in  pecuniary  reward  more  necessary  than  they  would 
be  in  a  saner  and  more  cultured  society?  Such  questions 
make  us  realize  that  principles  are  often  of  the  nature  of 


SOME  PRINCIPLES  OF  PECUNIARY  REWARD    189 

goals  at  which  we  should  aim,  rather  than  doctrines  which 
should  be  put  into  force  with  revolutionary  ardor.  The 
recognition  of  this  relativity  is,  however,  no  excuse  for 
dilatoriness  and  inactivity. 

Let  us,  then,  examine  those  principles  of  an  ethical 
character  which  have  been  suggested  by  socialists  and 
radicals  and  ethical  thinkers  and  then  try  to  relate  our 
conclusion  to  society  in  an  organic  way.  Somehow  dis- 
tribution must  take  into  account  the  value  of  the  indi- 
vidual's life  and  its  range  of  possibilities.  This  point  of 
approach  is  implicitly  democratic  in  so  far  as  it  leads  us 
to  see  value  in  all  human  beings  and  is  overtly  democratic 
when  it  causes  us  to  challege  inequalities  in  treatment 
which  have  not  a  clear  justification.  Democratic  prin- 
ciples should  manifest  themselves  as  tendencies  in  indus- 
try. This  much  at  least  we  can  say  without  fear  of  being 
untrue  to  the  relativity  of  things. 

To  those  who  have  felt  repelled  by  present  social  ar- 
rangements, two  standards  of  a  just  reward  have  in  the 
main  suggested  themselves.  Some  have  held  that  the 
members  of  society  should  receive  from  society  according 
to  their  need  while  others  have  maintained  that  reward 
should  be  according  to  merit.  A  study  of  these  two  stand- 
ards may  give  us  a  deeper  insight  into  the  problem. 

Those  who  assert  that  need  should  be  the  principle  of 
distribution  seem  to  forget  the  relativity  of  the  term. 
Needs  are  relative  to  the  standard  of  living  so  that  the 
need  of  a  cultured  man  who  has  fallen  on  evil  times  is 
actually  far  greater  than  that  of  the  man  who  has  been 
used  to  what  are  called  the  necessaries  of  life.  Thus  need 
is  not  an  absolute,  objective  fact  which  can  be  measured. 
An  individual  can  so  pamper  himself  that  his  needs  may 
be  far  greater  than  those  of  a  saner  individual  who  has  had 


190  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

a  healthier  view  of  life.  It  would  seem  necessary  to  set 
up  some  standard  of  living  as  a  healthy  minimum  and  to 
limit  the  principle  of  need  to  the  establishment  of  this 
level  of  reward;  at  least,  such  action  would  seem  to  be  the 
wisest  so  long  as  need  is  thought  of  in  the  personal,  sen- 
timental way  that  is  customary.  We  are  forced  to  con- 
clude that  need  as  ordinarily  interpreted  has  more  connec- 
tion with  the  older  ideas  of  charity  than  with  the  newer 
ideas  of  social  justice. 

We  saw  that  modern  ideas  of  justice  dwell  on  the  pos- 
sibilities which  inhere  in  individuals.  Public  opinion 
stresses  need  from  this  standpoint:  what  does  such  an 
individual  need  if  he  is  to  develop  what  he  is  capable  of? 
Thus  we  are  forward-looking  and  dynamic  and  relate  need 
to  the  conditions  of  a  satisfactory  development  of  capac- 
ities which  are  recognized  to  be  valuable  to  society.  We 
feel  that  society  should  strive  to  present  individuals  with 
those  pecuniary  conditions  which  will  assist  them  in  their 
efforts  at  self-realization.  Such  need  must  be  a  socially- 
controlled  affair  resting  in  the  enlightened  public  opinion 
of  the  day.  Inequalities  of  reward  ought — if  we  are  to 
accept  this  principle — to  correspond  to  differences  in 
capacity  on  the  supposition  that  it  is  more  difficult  to 
develop  trained  powers  involving  the  higher  faculties  than 
skill  of  a  less  subtle  type.  Were  the  development  of  capac- 
ity entirely  dependent  on  pecuniary  reward,  only  a  perfect 
and  omniscient  society  could  apportion  the  national  in- 
come in  such  a  way  that  this  constructive  justice  would  be 
forthcoming.  Fortunately,  however,  the  best  work  in  art, 
science  and  philosophy  is  done  by  those  who  are  far  from 
being  millionaires.  In  other  words,  there  is  no  just  human 
need  for  great  personal  wealth.  Poverty  hinders  the 
growth  of  these  nobler  achievements  because  it  prevents 


SOME  PRINCIPLES  OF  PECUNIARY  REWARD    191 

the  possession  of  necessary  conditions,  but  wealth  is  apt 
to  remove  the  simplicity  and  directness  of  genius. 

While  we  must  not  over-estimate  the  power  of  pecuniary 
reward  in  the  realm  of  the  things  which  are  worth  while,, 
it  is  equally  absurd  to  under-estimate  them.  A  society 
which  toils  overhard  to  give  fools  wherewith  to  disport 
themselves  is  a  foolish  society.  But  a  society  which  does 
this  while  those  who  work  have  not  a  satisfactory  standard 
of  living  and  the  children  of  ability  have  not  the  means  to 
develop  their  gifts  for  the  good  of  all  is  criminal  as  well  as , 
foolish.  Such  a  society  sins  against  the  possibilities  in- 
herent in  humanity  and  is  inefficient  because  short  sighted. 
The  standard  of  need  would  thus  seem  to  be  identical  with 
that  of  efficiency  when  the  latter  is  taken  in  a  large  social 
sense. 

Before  we  take  up  the  standard  of  merit  to  see  what  it 
leads  to,  it  may  be  well  to  call  attention  to  two  facts  which 
are  sometimes  forgotten.  First,  pecuniary  reward  is  not; 
the  only  kind  of  reward  which  can  be  given  by  society. 
Leisure  to  pursue  an  avocation,  to  follow  up  some  vein  of 
activity  which  has  not  yet  proven  itself  is  also  a  reward. 
The  wise  giving  of  leisure  is  just  as  important  as  the 
giving  of  money.  Second,  society  should  always  remember 
that  production  of  a  material  kind  is  not  the  end  of  life. 
A  spendthrift  society  can  never  solve  the  problem  of 
pecuniary  reward;  a  just  distribution  is  thus  always  bound 
up  with  the  problem  of  a  wise  and,  therefore,  just  quantity 
of  production.  In  this  way,  the  ethics  of  reward  is  bound 
up  with  the  ethics  of  work  and  the  ethics  of  leisure.  The 
spiritual  temper  of  society  will  always  affect  the  distribu- 
tion of  reward.  The  problem  cannot  be  a  purely  mechan- 
ical one. 

Now  need,  when  interpreted  in  this  constructive  way 


in     THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

and  connected  with  the  idea  of  social  efficiency,  seems  to 
offer  a  healthy  principle  for  distribution.  It  is  internal, 
purposive  and  social,  not  external  and  mechanical.  It  is, 
however,  not  an  easy  principle  to  apply  in  its  details,  but 
then  we  must  remember  that  no  real  problem  is  easy  of 
solution.  In  fact,  it  is  the  sign  of  a  trained  mind  in  social 
affairs  to  realize  that  mathematical  methods  are  only  par- 
tially applicable  when  the  relations  between  human  beings 
are  in  question. 

Having  seen  the  truth  that  lies  in  the  emphasis  on  need 
as  a  principle  of  pecuniary  reward,  let  us  next  consider  the 
more  commonly  accepted  standard  of  merit.  If  people 
could  be  rewarded  according  to  their  merit  would  such 
reward  be  just?  I  presume  that  the  majority  would 
immediately  answer  this  question  in  the  affirmative  with- 
out any  realization  of  the  vagueness  of  the  idea  of  merit. 
Do  we  mean  social  merit  or  individual  merit?  Are  these 
two  different  kinds  of  merit  coincident  or  may  they  be 
quite  opposed  to  one  another? 

The  principle  of  merit  is  usually  advanced  as  though  it 
were  perfectly  clear  in  its  meaning  and  had  no  need  of 
interpretation.  Nevertheless,  I  believe  that  reflection 
will  show  that  the  individualistic  notion  of  merit,  current 
among  us  and  connected  with  competitive  hustling,  is  too 
crude  and  unethical  to  survive  analysis  of  a  searching  kind. 

It  is  usual  to  connect  merit  with  effort  on  the  one  hand 
and  with  ability  on  the  other  hand;  and  no  persistent 
attempt  is  made  by  popular  thought  to  separate  the  two. 
Sometimes  ability  is  thought  of  as  the  result  of  effort  and, 
therefore,  as  the  creation  of  the  individual;  sometimes  it  is 
taken  as  a  gift  which  deserves  recognition.  It  is  surpris- 
ingly seldom  that  even  this  much  of  a  distinction  is  made. 
People  demand  a  reward  proportionate  to  their  ability  just 


SOME  PRINCIPLES  OF  PECUNIARY  REWARD    193 

because  it  is  their  own,  just  as  they  claim  rent  for  land  or 
interest  for  money  that  has  been  loaned.  They  bring 
ability  under  the  category  of  property — it  is  their  posses- 
sion— and  never  dream  of  carrying  the  analysis  further. 
Their  reasoning  is  probably  somewhat  as  follows : — "  Under 
the  present  economic  organization  certain  kinds  of  ability 
enable  the  individual  to  secure  a  greater  reward  than  those 
are  able  to  obtain  who  do  not  possess  these  capacities. 
But  the  organization  which  makes  individuals  compete 
with  one  another  for  their  share  of  the  social  income  is 
just  and  natural.  Therefore,  the  reward  of  ability  is 
just."  I  presume  that  very  few  practical  men  have  a 
moment's  doubt  in  regard  to  the  essential  justice  of  the 
unequal  division  of  income  which  is  so  characteristic  of 
present-day  society.  A  man  is  supposed  to  have  a  sort 
of  innate  property  right  in  his  own  capacities.  In  the  old 
days  when  religion  still  modified  the  economic  outlook  of 
the  majority,  it  was  common  to  hear  men  speak  of  their 
ability  as  a  gift  of  God  to  be  reverently  used  for  those  ends 
which  would  appear  good  in  His  eyes.  In  other  words, 
ability  was  not  looked  at  as  an  absolute  possession;  it 
was  in  fact  limited  and  conditional,  the  individual  was  an 
agent  or  representative  not  a  monarch.  To-day  this  con- 
ditional view  has  almost  died  out  and  ability  is  conceived 
as  a  gift  of  heredity,  or  of  chance,  of  which  the  individual 
has  a  perfect  right  to  take  advantage  just  as  he  takes 
advantage  of  the  rise  in  value  of  land  due  to  the  growth 
of  a  town. 

But  even  the  political  economist  is  beginning  to  think 
of  ability  as  a  sort  of  rent,  something  which  the  individual 
does  not  earn  but  which  society  allows  him  to  make  use  of 
for  its  own  good  purpose  or  lack  of  purpose.  We  say  that 
the  landlord  has  the  legal  right  to  the  rent  which  his  land 


194  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

brings  but  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  assert  that  he  de- 
serves it  or  merits  it.  But  how  easily  these  two  different 
concepts  are  confused  in  every  day  thought !  In  the  same 
way,  a  man  has  a  legal  right  to  the  rent  which  his  ability 
brings  but  it  would  be  wrong  for  him  to  interpret  this  as 
meaning  that  he  deserved  it  in  some  intrinsic  fashion. 
Only  if  all  men  started  equal  as  naked  souls  having  the 
same  capacities  and  had  that  free-will  of  which  theologians 
speak  would  they  have  the  right  to  claim  merit  for  the 
trained  abilities  which  they  would  finally  possess.  Leaving 
aside  the  interesting  philosophical  question  whether  such 
a  facultative  free-will  has  any  meaning,  it  is  still  obvious 
that  no  individual  is  self-created  in  this  way.  The  self- 
made  man  is  after  all  only  partially  self-made.  If  his 
ability  is  hereditary,  he  cannot  claim  merit  for  his  ances- 
tors; if  it  is  due  to  a  chance  variation,  he  cannot  regard 
such  a  fortunate  variation  as  the  result  of  his  own  mer- 
itorious efforts.  So  far,  then,  as  it  is  a  question  of  natural 
ability,  it  seems  clear  that  we  must  leave  out  the  idea  of 
merit  in  the  laudatory  sense  of  that  term.  A  little  more 
humility  on  the  part  of  successful  men  would  be  a  good 
thing.  Each  should  see  himself  in  his  relations,  genetic 
and  social.  The  inventor  ought  to  know  his  dependence 
upon  pure  science,  the  business  man  upon  the  development 
of  transportation  and  upon  social  activity  in  general.  This 
knowledge,  if  it  brought  humility,  would  assist  greatly  in 
the  coming  of  that  social  atmosphere  which  democracy 
needs.  To  bring  this  about  is  the  task  of  our  educational 
system  to  which  it  has  been  largely  recreant. 

Let  us  see,  now,  whether  this  general  discussion  of  the 
principles  of  reward  can  lead  to  any  practical  suggestion. 

Certain  general  reforms  suggest  themselves  at  once. 
These  have  been  grouped  together  frequently  enough 


SOME  PRINCIPLES  OF  PECUNIARY  REWARD    195 

under  the  caption,  equality  of  opportunity.  Equality 
of  opportunity,  it  is  asserted,  will  give  the  conditions  for 
a  fairer  competition  between  individuals  for  rewards. 
Eliminate  the  obviously  unfit  by  kindly  segregation,  pre- 
vent the  propagation  of  those  who  are  sub-normal  by 
similar  measures;  distribute  the  burdens  of  accident  and 
unemployment  over  society  as  a  whole  instead  of  letting 
them  fall  upon  the  individual  or  the  family;  better  the 
opportunity  for  an  education  suited  to  the  nature  of  the 
individual  and  the  role  he  will  probably  play  when  he 
grows  up.  All  these  reforms  will  lead  to  a  healthier  so- 
ciety and  one  in  which  the  individual  is  more  capable  of 
competing  with  his  fellows.  Besides,  such  individuals 
will  be  more  apt  to  cooperate  together  for  the  develop- 
ment of  socialized  institutions  and  methods. 

Thus  far,  however,  we  have  onty  the  elementary  condi- 
tions of  social  justice  concerning  which  there  is,  in  theory 
at  least,  little  dispute.  Society  mpves  forward  too  slowly 
because  of  the  inertia  caused  by  thoughtlessness  and 
selfishness;  but  the  battle  of  ideas  has  been  fought  and 
practically  won.  Yet  the  question  remains  obstinately 
in  our  minds  whether  these  elementary  reforms  go  much 
farther  than  an  alleviation  of  the  effects  of  social  mal- 
adjustments. Will  these  reforms  bring  about  a  real  and 
effective  equality  of  opportunity?  I  very  much  doubt 
it  because  there  is  in  them  no  attempt  to  grapple  with 
those  social  institutions  whose  influence  is  continuous 
and  pervasive.  The  individualist  reformer  has  faith  in 
the  power  of  minor  changes  apart  from  radical  alteration 
in  the  control  of  industry  and  property.  For  instance, 
the  economist  with  this  outlook  asserts  that  the  solution 
of  the  problem  lies  in  the  increase  of  employers  with  the 
retention  of  the  competitive  system.  If  only  more  in- 


196  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

dividuals  could  receive  the  proper  training  and  education 
and  secure  the  necessary  credit,  profits  would  auto- 
matically sink,  that  is,  the  employer's  share  of  the  amount 
distributed  would  be  less.  Now  this  is  evidently  only 
the  rebirth  of  the  ideal  of  free  competition  in  opposition 
to  private  monopoly.  Of  the  two  it  is  undoubtedly  the 
one  to  be  preferred;  but  the  question  remains  how  it  is 
to  be  put  into  force  when  all  the  tendencies  are  towards 
amalgamation  and  cooperation.  The  opposition  has  been 
outgrown  because  a  new  possibility  has  come  to  the  front 
since  the  days  of  Adam  Smith. 

The  truth  is  that  the  principle  of  equal  opportunity 
cannot  be  realized,  even  approximately,  apart  from  a 
serious  re-adjustment  of  property  relations  and  control. 
These  buoy  up  those  who  are  otherwise  little  different 
from  scores  of  others  and  give  them  a  reward  out  of  all 
proportion  to  their  needs  and  merit.  "It  is  said  that  the 
first  Cornelius  Vanderbilt,  who  founded  the  Vanderbilt 
family,  made  a  fortune  of  one  hundred  million  dollars 
out  of  railways,  and  it  is  said  that  he  made  it  legitimately, 
it  being  claimed  that  he  rendered  very  valuable  services 
to  the  country  and  that  these  services  were  worth  quite 
one  hundred  million  dollars  if  not  a  good  deal  more." 
Now  those  who  make  such  dogmatic  statements  as  these 
do  not  realize  that  they  have  no  standard  of  valuation 
of  an  objective  sort.  In  this  country  a  service  is  worth 
what  can  be  gotten  for  it  and  this  fact  means  that  worth 
is  a  purely  competitive  category  relative  to  the  social  or- 
ganization. Change  this  organization  and  the  same 
services  would  be  worth  far  less.  It  is  this  significance 
of  the  basic  spirit  and  methods  of  a  country  which  the 
economist  usually  fails  to  grasp.  "There  was  in  Wurt- 
temberg  in  the  early  days  of  railways  a  very  able  railway 


SOME  PRINCIPLES  OF  PECUNIARY  REWARD    197 

manager  whose  services  resembled  in  many  respects  those 
of  the  first  Cornelius  Vanderbilt,  because  the  essential 
service  of  the  first  Cornelius  Vanderbilt  consisted  in  rail- 
way concentration  and  unification.  The  man  in  Wurttem- 
berg,  referred  to,  effected  a  real  unity  in  the  administration 
of  the  railways  in  that  state  and  developed  and  built  up 
there  a  very  excellent  railway  system;  and  his  salary  was 
less  than  $3,000  a  year."  Of  course,  if  we  as  a  nation  are 
incapable  of  doing  things  in  a  social  way,  we  must  pay  a 
hundred  millions  to  have  them  done  in  an  individualistic 
way.  Has  not,  however,  the  Panama  canal  taught  us 
that  we  are  not  so  incapable  socially  as  we  have  thought 
ourselves  to  be?  The  paradox  of  America  has  been  that 
its  pride  has  suffered  so  little  at  its  acknowledged  inability 
to  do  large  social  things  in  a  cooperative  way. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  equal  opportunity  is  relative 
to  the  spirit  and  method  of  industrial  enterprise.  And 
I  do  not  see  how  property  relations  with  the  control  they 
involve  can  be  very  much  modified  without  steps  being 
taken  in  the  direction  of  public  activity.  Control  and 
opportunity  must  be  socialized  and  such  socialization 
requires  a  social  organization  and  a  spirit  of  cooperation. 

Our  general  conclusion  can  now  be  stated.  The  ideal 
principle  of  reward  is  that  of  need,  reward  being  thus  rec- 
ognized definitely  as  a  means  to  an  end,  a  self-realization  in 
accord  with  a  progressive  social  welfare.  But  this  principle 
cannot  be  directly  applied  apart  from  an  experimental 
demonstration  on  the  part  of  the  individual  of  what  he 
is  capable  of  doing,  and  this  objective  test  is  essentially 
one  with  the  principle  of  merit.  In  other  words,  the 
individual  cannot  be  separated  from  his  activity  and 
judged  as  a  mere  bundle  of  potentialities.  His  needs  must 
be  connected  with  his  actual  functions.  There  is,  then, 


198  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

no  final  opposition  between  social  need  and  social  merit. 
It  follows  that  we  must  relinquish  any  hope  of  an  objective, 
mathematical  principle  which  could  be  applied  apart 
from  the  actual  tangle  of  human  activity.  The  ideal 
must  be  incarnated  in  the  social  organization  of  society 
and  work  there  automatically.  Of  course,  no  ideal  can  be 
incarnated  completely  but  can  only  be  approached.  But 
the  point  I  wish  to  make  is  that  we  should  never  dream  of 
an  absolute  and  fixed  justice  external  to  society.  An 
equitable  reward  must  flow  from  a  society  whose  economic 
organization  is  the  manifestation  of  right  principles. 
There  should  be  little  need  to  redistribute  by  means  of 
special  laws. 

What  is  desirable,  then,  is  the  growth  of  those  economic 
relations  which  will  help  to  evoke  the  energies  of  men 
and  at  the  same  time  minister  to  the  social  welfare  of  all 
classes  and  types.  Over-rewards  and  under-rewards 
will  first  of  all  be  eliminated;  and,  as  time  goes  on,  things 
will  shape  themselves  to  a  far  nearer  approach  to  equality 
than  is  at  present  dreamed  of.  Yet  it  seems  safe  to  say 
that,  however  rich  the  growth  of  the  spirit  of  service  and 
cooperation  may  be,  it  will  never  do  away  with  the  need 
for  some  form  of  personal  competition.  The  majority 
of  men  require  a  visible  stimulus  for  their  activity.  More- 
over, to  demand  equality  at  any  price  is  to  show  an  un- 
generous spirit  as  little  admirable  as  that  of  rampant 
self-assertion. 

Besides  the  pecuniary  reward  whose  ethical  principles 
we  have  just  been  examining,  there  are  other  rewards 
which  an  increasing  civilization  will  offer  ever  more  freely 
to  all  its  children.  The  principle  of  these  other  rewards 
will  be,  as  they  have  always  been,  communistic  in  char- 
acter. The  beauty  of  nature  has  been  common  to  all 


SOME  PRINCIPLES  OF  PECUNIARY  REWARD    199 

just  as  the  air  has  been.  To  these  gifts  enjoyed  in  com- 
mon will  be  added  the  beauty  of  municipal  buildings, 
the  restful  peace  of  well  kept-up  parks,  the  pleasure  of 
concerts  in  the  evenings,  the  use  at  will  of  libraries  and 
museums.  Greater  than  all  these,  perhaps,  though  de- 
pending on  them  will  be  the  constant  enjoyment  of  real 
companionship  of  cultivated  minds  vitally  interested  in 
things  worth  while.  Who  can  measure  the  rewards  added 
to  the  pecuniary  wages  by  this  artistic  and  spiritual  com- 
munism? Already  society  is  learning  that  in  these  fields 
the  good  of  the  many  is  the  good  of  each.  It  may  be  that 
it  will  be  led  by  a  recognition  of  this  spiritual  law  to  a  new 
valuation  of  material  things. 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  CONDITIONS  OF  A  SOCIAL  FREEDOM 

WE  are  often  assured  that  we  are  a  "free"  people.  We 
are  given  to  understand  that  freedom  is  an  inheritance 
from  our  fathers  and  that  it  has  since  been  handed  down 
like  the  Constitution  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
from  a  Golden  Age  of  political  achievement.  In  contrast 
to  the  citizens  of  other  countries  we  have,  it  is  said,  much 
cause  for  self-congratulation  because  of  this  possession 
of  liberty.  Liberty  is  thus  taken  as  a  final  thing  and 
not  as  a  growing  thing  Is  it  not  possible  that  we  have 
taken  one  phase  in  the  coming  of  complete  liberty  as  the 
perfect  consummation?  Perhaps  we  have  not  reflected 
deeply  enough  and  have  allowed  ourselves  to  think  that 
our  task  was  ended  when  it  was  not  much  more  than 
begun.  Perhaps  the  possession  of  a  formal  political  liberty 
should  mark  only  the  beginning  of  a  deeper  and  more 
difficult  struggle  for  levels  of  freedom  which  lie  beyond. 
Have  we  not  thought  of  freedom  too  carelessly  as  a  simple 
thing  easily  attained  whereas  it  has  depth  within  depth 
each  more  elusive  than  the  one  before?  These  are  some 
of  the  ideas  which  are  commencing  to  haunt  us  when  we 
are  glibly  told  that  we  are  a  free  people.  We  are  be- 
ginning to  feel  that  freedom  is  a  relative  matter  and  that 
the  freedom  upon  which  we  have  prided  ourselves  is 
only  a  means  to  an  end  which  we  have  not  closely  enough 
considered. 

New  voices  have,  of  late,  sounded  in  our  ears  bidding 
us  look  around  upon  society  as  it  actually  is  and  to  cease 

200 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  A  SOCIAL  FREEDOM    201 

substituting  sentimental  ideas  of  what  is  for  what  actually 
is.  And  would  it  not  be  a  good  plan  to  be  realists  as 
well  as  idealists?  We  could  then  test  the  one  by  the 
other.  The  Declaration  of  Independence  did  not  prevent 
the  growth  of  slums;  and  economic  let-alonism  did  not 
secure  equal  opportunity  to  all.  To  a  very  large  extent, 
Americans  have  been  abstract  idealists  who  refused  to 
test  their  beliefs  by  facts.  But  now  we  have  become  in- 
fested by  Athenian  gadflies  in  the  shape  of  reformers, 
historians,  sociologists  and  socialists  who  are  stinging 
us  into  irritated  questionings  and  half-defiant  observa- 
tions. They  demand  that  we  examine  our  actual  institu- 
tions and  follow  their  detailed  working  instead  of  feeding 
ourselves  with  general  phrases  handed  down  to  us  from  a 
time  when  they  stood  for  actual  steps  in  advance.  And, 
strange  to  say,  there  has  come  over  us  a  half-defined 
conviction  that  these  voices  speak  truly  and  that  we  have 
been  recreant  to  the  spirit  and  larger  import  of  the  prin- 
ciples we  have  traditionally  championed;  that  we  have 
not  carried  on  the  work  which  the  eighteenth  century 
so  nobly  began.  While  the  eighteenth  century  was  radical 
and  had  visions  of  better  things,  the  nineteenth  century 
was  conservative  and  engrossed  in  the  conquest  of  nature. 
There  are  not  wanting  signs  that  the  twentieth  century 
will  return  to  the  idealism  of  the  eighteenth  and  add  to  it 
a  greater  experience  of  ways  and  means  and  of  the  con- 
crete conditions  of  a  social  freedom.  What,  indeed,  is 
freedom?  And  has  it  no  further  reaches  to  which  our 
traditional  liberties  are  but  the  portal? 

I  presume  that  most  Americans  would  now  admit  that 
there  has  been  much  arrogance  in  our  claim  to  be  the 
unique  possessors  of  liberty.  Humility  has  never  been 
a  conspicuous  virtue  of  the  strident  patriotisms  of  the 


202  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

past,  and  our  country  has  by  no  means  marked  herself 
out  as  a  blushing  exception  in  this  reign  of  chauvinism. 
We  magnified  our  secession  from  England  and  our  forma- 
tion of  a  staid  republican  government  resting  on  a  simple 
agricultural  individualism  into  a  world-event  of  tremen- 
dous import.  We  forgot  that  our  conception  of  liberty 
was  that  of  Locke  and  of  the  English  Whigs  of  whom  he 
was  the  spokesman.  Convinced  in  our  simplicity  that  we 
had  created  a  new  era  in  which  all  the  old  social  and  politi- 
cal problems  were  solved,  we  blazoned  our  ensigns  and 
marched  on  to  the  conquest  of  a  wilderness.  This  work 
we  did  faithfully  and  vigorously  and  were  rewarded  by  a 
growth  in  wealth  that  was  almost  incredible.  How  much 
of  this  was  due  to  our  merit  and  how  much  to  the  natural 
fruitfulness  of  the  continent  cannot  be  told. 

In  the  meanwhile,  we  adhered  to  the  negative  idea  of 
government  with  which  we  had  been  imbued  by  the  strug- 
gle against  the  feudal  system  which  was  taking  place  in 
Europe  at  the  time.  Our  real  government  consisted  of  our 
economic  methods  and  of  our  social  habits.  And  this  fact 
was  reflected  into  the  Constitution  which  was  adopted. 
"The  fundamental  division  of  powers  in  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,"  writes  President  Hadley,  "is  be- 
tween the  voters  on  the  one  hand  and  property  owners  on 
the  other.  The  forces  of  democracy  on  one  side,  divided 
between  the  executive  and  the  legislature,  are  set  over 
against  the  forces  of  property  on  the  other  side,  with  the 
judiciary  as  arbiter  between  them."  And  we  all  know 
that  the  judiciary1  was  permeated  by  the  presuppositions 
of  common  law  with  its  exaltation  of  property  over  per- 

*I  would  refer  again  to  Mr.  Brooks  Adams'  "The  Theory  of  Social 
Revolutions,"  especially  to  Chapter  II,  The  Limitations  of  the  Judicial 
Functions. 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  A  SOCIAL  FREEDOM    203 

sons.  It  was,  therefore,  hardly  an  impartial  arbiter. 
Hence  the  danger  was  that  freedom  would  be  lost  in  a  lib- 
erty which  had  been  split  up  into  liberties  hardly  dis- 
tinguishable from  privileges. 

It  was  in  such  an  atmosphere  and  under  the  reign  of 
this  real  government  by  institutions  and  traditions  that 
America  passed  from  the  promise  of  boyhood  to  a  stalwart 
but  earthly  manhood.  At  times  voices  of  protest  were 
raised  but  they  were  scarcely  heeded.  Hence,  the  first 
criticisms  which  made  us  wince  came  from  foreigners  who 
visited  our  shores  and  found  a  gulf  fixed  between  fact  and 
abstract  ideal,  and  from  those  English  writers,  such  as 
Carlyle,  Dickens,  Arnold  and,  latterly,  Bryce,  whom  we 
read  and  admired.  Still  many  of  the  comments  which 
came  from  across  the  sea  were  favorable  so  far  as  there 
was  question  of  the  rough  democracy  of  our  lives.  We 
had  large  generosities  and  a  fair  degree  of  willingness  to 
recognize  ability  in  whatever  walk  of  life  it  might  be  found. 
In  other  words,  we  had  the  virtues  of  our  situation  and 
of  our  historical  origins.  But  these  characteristics  were 
natural  gifts  rather  than  controlled  habits  founded  on 
reflection.  In  a  new  country,  life  was  comparatively  simple 
and  direct  and  our  fathers  did  not  realize  the  problems 
which  time  would  inevitably  bring.  And  for  a  long  time — 
even  up  to  the  present — we  Americans  have  remained  on 
the  whole  what  the  Germans  call  kritiklos,  that  is,  un- 
reflective,  uncritical.  We  have  been  overly  optimistic  in 
regard  to  social  conditions  and  have  allowed  institutions 
to  develop  haphazard  in  the  blind  faith  that  things  would 
turn  out  all  right. 

During  the  pioneer  days  of  America,  Carlyle's  view  of 
our  situation  held  true,  that  we  had  "half  a  world  of  un- 
tilled  land,  where  populations  that  respect  the  constable 


204  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

can  live,  for  the  present,  without  government."  And, 
indeed,  in  many  parts  of  the  country — notably  the  West — 
there  was  not  an  excessive  respect  even  for  the  constable. 
In  many  ways  there  has  been  no  truer  prophecy  than  that 
found  in  the  "Latter-Day  Pamphlets."  "To  men  in  their 
sleep  there  is  nothing  granted  in  this  world:  nothing  or 
next  to  nothing  to  men  that  sit  idly  caucusing  and  ballot- 
boxing  on  the  graves  of  their  heroic  ancestors,  saying,  'It 
is  well,  it  is  well!'  .  .  .  No:  America  too  will  have  to 
strain  its  energies  in  quite  another  fashion  than  this;  to 
crack  its  sinews  and  all  but  break  its  heart,  as  the  rest  of 
us  have  to  do,  in  thousandfold  wrestle  with  the  Pythons 
and  mud-demons  before  it  can  become  a  habitation  for  the 
gods.  America's  battle  is  yet  to  fight;  and  we,  sorrowful 
though  nothing  doubting,  will  wish  her  strength  to  it." 
This  prediction,  made  during  the  days  of  the  Chartist 
movement  in  England,  sounds  indeed  prophetic  to  the 
American  of  the  present.  New  problems  are  constantly 
opening  at  our  feet  and  the  familiar  watchwords  to  which 
we  trusted  seem  to  be  losing  their  efficacy.  For  many 
years,  we  refused  to  acknowledge  to  ourselves  that  there 
could  be  social  problems,  that  mal-adjustments  could 
arise;  to-day  we  are  beginning  to  realize  that  society  is  full 
of  problems.  Formerly  we  were  fascinated  by  the  vision  of 
an  abstract  liberty  which  assumed  that  it  was  possible  for 
individuals  to  be  isolated  and  self-sufficient;  now  we  are 
asking  ourselves  the  conditions  of  a  dynamic,  social 
liberty  in  which  individuals  may  aid  one  another  to  find 
the  conditions  of  a  satisfactory  life.  Let  us  see  whether  we 
can  get  a  clearer  idea  of  what  liberty  has  meant  in  the  past 
and  of  what  it  is  capable  of  meaning.  It  may  be  that  we 
shall  then  realize  that  liberty  is  a  difficult  thing  to  attain 
and  that  its  attainment  is  dependent  upon  the  solution  of 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  A  SOCIAL  FREEDOM    205 

large  numbers  of  practical  problems.  How  can  individuals 
be  best  related  to  each  other  and  to  the  means  of  life? 
What  capacities  do  we  wish  to  develop?  What  goal  should 
a  wise  nation  aim  at?  These  questions  set  the  problems 
of  a  real  or  effective  liberty  in  a  social  organization  like 
the  present. 

An  appreciation  of  the  gradual  deepening  and  broad- 
ening of  the  idea  of  freedom  as  this  has  gone  on  within 
historical  times  is  undoubtedly  the  best  preparation  for 
reflection  upon  the  nature  of  a  desirable  freedom.  We 
shall  know  better  what  fits  in  with  human  nature  and  be 
able  to  judge  how  far  customs  and  institutions  which 
were  once  an  advance  are  adapted  to  the  newer  conditions 
of  the  present.  Once  we  get  a  clear  conception  of  what 
man  as  a  personality  desires,  we  have  only  to  work  out  the 
social  setting  which  will  free  him  for  this  self-realization. 
The  problem  for  investigation  and  reflection  will  then  be 
practical  in  character  although  difficult  enough  of  solution: 
how  far  must  habits  and  methods  be  changed  in  order  to 
meet  new  conditions  and  bring  out  the  best  in  the  larger 
possibilities  which  progress  has  opened  up? 

But  we  must  not  make  the  mistake  that  many  reformers 
have  made  and  suppose  that  changes  in  institutions,  alone, 
are  sufficient  to  give  freedom  and  all  good  things  to  man- 
kind. Institutions  are  tools  which  must  be  used  with  skill 
and  guided  by  an  informing  hand  if  they  are  to  accomplish 
social  work  of  a  high  level.  Perhaps  no  misconception 
has  done  more  to  mar  the  good  intentions  and  sentiments 
of  what  we  are  pleased  to  call  democracy  than  this  worship 
of  forms  and  institutions  and  the  naive  assumption  that  it 
is  easy  to  use  them  skillfully  and  creatively.  When  I 
look  back  upon  the  history  of  nineteenth  century  democ- 
racy— in  spite  of  the  many  noble  things  and  beneficent 


206  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

impulses  which  must  be  put  to  its  credit — I  am  impressed 
by  the  omnipresence  of  this  assumption  that  the  internal 
factor  is  of  less  importance  than  the  external.  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  democracy  has  been  a  matter  of  forms 
and  rights  rather  than  of  substance  and  the  harmonious 
adjustment  of  rights  and  duties.  I  do  not  wonder  that 
many  an  European,  notwithstanding  his  wistfulness  at  our 
freedom  from  those  national  jealousies  and  inherited  fric- 
tions which  leave  his  continent  always  on  the  verge  of  war, 
feels  that  we  are  children  who  are  not  willing  to  learn 
patiently  the  art  of  using  the  instruments  which  we  pos- 
sess. And  is  it  not  true  that  we  have  thought  that  there 
was  a  magic  in  institutions  and  terms  which  made  a  pains- 
taking study  of  their  use  and  abuse  unnecessary?  Have 
we  not  been  like  untrained  barbarians,  full  of  grand  visions 
and  noble  sentiments  but  lacking  that  thorough  knowledge 
of  technic  which  is  the  pre-condition  of  creative  artistry 
in  the  social  realm  as  much  as  it  is  in  painting  and  sculp- 
ture? I  do  not  wish  to  lay  over-stress  on  this  natural  tend- 
ency to  think  that  tools  and  workshops  are  more  important 
than  the  mental  and  spiritual  power  to  use  them  master- 
fully and  with  discrimination;  but  the  illusion  is  so  wide- 
spread and  has  done  so  much  damage  to  democracy  that  it 
is  a  duty  to  call  attention  to  it.  I  do  so  not  in  the  service 
of  the  class-aristocracy  of  the  past  nor  in  that  of  our  own 
crude  plutocracy  but  in  that  of  the  democracy  which  we 
hope  to  see  grow  and  reach  a  wise  adulthood  in  the  years 
to  come.  We  Americans  who  have  taken  high-school 
buildings  for  schools,  and  city-halls  for  the  civic  conscious- 
ness of  the  city,  and  libraries  for  scholars  need  to  have  a 
Socrates  to  sting  us  out  of  our  lethargy.  And  the  socialist 
needs  to  reflect  upon  this  teaching  of  the  importance  of  the 
internal,  for  he  too  is  apt  to  forget  it  in  his  anger  at  the 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  A  SOCIAL  FREEDOM    207 

injustice  of  inherited  methods  and  institutions  when  con- 
tinued beyond  their  day. 

The  conditions  of  a  social  freedom,  then,  are  both  in- 
ternal and  external.  And  in  this  regard  society  is  similar 
to  the  individual.  The  individual  who  would  be  free, 
in  the  fullest  sense,  must  possess  the  power  of  reflection 
and  be  able  to  order  his  life  in  its  various  activities  so  as 
to  bring  out  that  nice  balance  that  permits  a  sane  and 
healthy  growth  of  his  faculties.  But  there  is  also  neces- 
sary those  material  means  which  enable  him  to  plan  his 
life.  In  an  analogous  way,  we  may  say,  society  is  em- 
bodied in  a  political  and  economic  organism  which  is  con- 
trolled and  maintained  by  the  creative  thought  of  human 
beings  and  which  yet  reacts  profoundly  upon  their  des- 
tiny. Thus  the  outer  and  the  inner,  the  body  and  the 
spirit  of  society,  are  most  intimately  connected.  Social 
welfare  depends  upon  the  adequacy  of  both. 

But  society  is  only  tardily  progressive.  In  this,  too, 
it  is  like  the  majority  of  individuals  who  reach  a  certain 
level  of  achievement  or  of  skill  and  are  content  to  rest 
there  as  though  the  springs  of  their  energies  had  run  dry 
or  their  capacities  were  not  of  quality  or  strength  to  carry 
them  farther.  For  this  reason,  society  is  essentially  con- 
servative and,  so  long  as  institutions  and  customs  are 
not  too  obviously  imperfect  and  do  not  rest  upon  sensitive 
shoulders  with  too  crushing  a  force,  it  is  inclined  to  let 
well  enough  alone — as  though  there  could  be  a  "  well 
enough"  in  these  matters.  Looking  deeper  and  passing 
beyond  the  psychological  analogy  with  the  individual,  we 
see  that  society  has  a  structural  thickness,  that  it  posses- 
ses a  third  dimension  so  to  speak;  it  consists  of  classes  or 
groups  having  different  destinies  and  playing  different 
r6les  in  the  complex  life  of  the  whole.  And  this  sociologi- 


208  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

cal  fact  has  direct  bearing  upon  the  conditions  of  social 
freedom.  Groups  which  lie  in  the  upper  strata  of  society 
may  be  able  to  breathe  freely  while  those  which  are  farther 
down  feel  stifled.  The  individuals  who  compose  the  first 
group  will  probably  feel  pretty  free  and  actually  be  able 
to  choose  their  mode  of  life  in  practically  every  respect 
while  the  members  of  the  other  group  are  bound  down 
and  their  path  laid  out  for  them  in  numberless  ways,  ways 
which  only  the  very  strong  and  very  capable  are  able  to 
avoid. 

So  long  as  the  influential  groups  are  satisfied  and  the 
more  circumscribed  classes  are  unawakened  and  inarticu- 
late, little  alteration  in  institutions  and  in  the  incidence 
of  their  weight  will  be  made.  The  groups  which  form 
and  control  public  opinion  have,  as  a  rule,  little  of  which 
to  complain;  they  are,  therefore,  inclined  to  be  retrospec- 
tive, historically  minded,  acquiescent.  The  rest  of  the 
population,  on  the  other  hand,  is  usually  inconspicuous 
in  everything  but  numbers;  they  are  seldem  given  to 
questioning  customs,  usages  and  institutions  unless  they 
are  almost  unbearable.  Hence,  between  the  passivity 
of  the  many  and  the  contentment  of  the  few,  progress  is 
bound  to  be  slow.  Certain  social  dogmas  grow  up  and 
receive  general  acceptance,  such  as  the  belief  that  the 
formal  right  to  vote  will  automatically  bring  about  an 
effective  freedom  for  all.  Instead  of  seeing  that  freedom 
has  new  reaches  beyond  those  which  have  been  achieved, 
but  that  these  new  reaches  will  not  fall  into  the  lap  of  the 
many,  like  ripe  fruit,  as  the  result  of  some  formal  charm; 
public  opinion  is  prone  to  rest  content  with  things  as  they 
are.  Selfishness  plays  some  part  in  this  acquiescence  but 
lack  of  imagination  and  control  by  habit  are  just  as  power- 
ful if  not  more  powerful.  The  majority  of  human  beings 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  A  SOCIAL  FREEDOM    209 

are  the  creatures  of  habit  and  do  not  have  the  mental  train- 
ing nor  the  imaginative  audacity  to  grapple  with  problems 
involving  complex  reconstructions. 

The  function  of  modern  socialism  is  to  awaken  the 
majority  to  a  realization  of  their  condition  and  to  in- 
duce them  to  reflect  on  the  possibility  of  social  changes 
which  will  give  them  real  and  effective  liberty  and  remove 
those  handicaps  under  which  they  labor.  On  the  negative 
side,  socialism  seeks  frankly  enough  to  arouse  dissatisfac- 
tion with  present  conditions  and  to  stimulate  the  desire 
for  better  things;  it  does  this,  believing  that  progress  must 
have  psychical  forces  back  of  it.  Has  not  a  wide-spread 
desire  for  change  been  the  essential  factor  in  all  great 
movements?  A  subject  people  always  has  itself  as  well  as 
the  strength  of  its  masters  to  blame  for  its  position.  On 
the  positive  side,  socialism  welcomes  all  those  suggestions 
which,  put  into  practice,  help  to  raise  the  level  of  capacity 
and  the  degree  of  real  freedom  of  the  mass  of  the  people.  If, 
at  times,  it  has  laid  too  much  stress  upon  the  value  of 
institutions  and  has  somewhat  overlooked  the  respon- 
sibility which  will  rest  upon  those  who  seek  to  apply 
these  institutions,  it  has  done  this  in  common  with  all 
popular  democracy.  Its  weakness  has  been  the  weakness 
of  the  whole  period  and  must  not  be  thrown  on  its  shoul- 
ders alone.  There  are  not  wanting  signs,  however, — and 
I  hope  this  book  will  be  taken  as  one  of  them — that  a  new 
spirit  is  arising  in  democracy,  a  spirit  which  sees  the  living 
unity  of  inner  and  outer,  of  institutions  and  the  social 
mind.  These  two  aspects  of  society  must  ride  abreast 
in  what  the  physicist  would  call  the  same  phase  if  they 
are  to  reenforce  one  another.  When  democratic  aspira- 
tions do  not  find  vital  expression  in  institutions,  they  are 
sure  to  lose  their  vigor  and  degenerate  into  formal  senti- 


210  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

ments;  when  institutions  are  not  filled  with  the  social 
energy  of  an  intelligent  and  moral  citizenry,  they  are 
unable  to  fulfill  their  promise.  Institutions  are  not  auto- 
matic machines,  they  are  more  like  the  organs  of  a  living 
body. 

I  have  felt  the  need  to  stress  these  sociological  facts 
which  are  so  easily  overlooked;  but  I  must  now  pass  on 
to  consider  in  more  detail  the  conditions  of  freedom.  The 
usual  answer  to  this  problem  would  be  "  the  social  and 
personal  recognition  of  rights."  Let  us  see  how  far  this 
answer  is  true  and  to  what  extent  it  must  be  supplemented 
to  be  the  whole  truth. 

Socialism  or,  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  collectivism  is 
frequently  thought  of  as  antagonistic  to  individual  free- 
dom. This  opinion  is  in  large  measure  the  consequence 
of  those  superficial  contrasts  which  rule  the  thinking  of 
so  many  publicists.  The  individual  is  thought  of  as  some- 
how outside  of  and  opposed  to  society  and  his  freedom, 
expressed  in  rights,  is  therefore  conceived  as  a  charter 
which  has  been  wrung  from  a  grudging  society.  Nothing 
could  be  less  true  of  the  facts;  rights  are  social  rights 
which  represent  the  decision  of  society  as  to  the  best  means 
for  its  welfare.  Thus  rights  are  social  instruments  and 
not  anti-social  possessions.  What  we  call  individualism 
represents  the  loose  organization  which  society  believed 
was  the  best  at  a  certain  stage  in  its  evolution.  All  free- 
dom must  be  social;  the  only  question  is  whether  the 
maximum  of  freedom  can  be  obtained  by  means  of  a 
loose  organization  of  individuals  striving  for  their  own 
hand  or  by  means  of  an  intelligent  cooperation.  The 
practical  difficulty  with  the  first  method  is,  as  we  have 
seen,  that  rights  when  uncontrolled  easily  become  anti- 
social and  thus  contradict  themselves.  The  more  units 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  A  SOCIAL  FREEDOM    211 

there  are  to  adjust,  the  harder  it  is  to  adjust  them.  If  we 
should  wish  to  characterize  the  stages  in  social  growth  from 
the  point  of  view  of  our  present  problem,  it  would  be  best 
to  indicate  the  three  levels  which  lie  open  to  the  social 
mind.  These  are,  in  their  order,  status — which  is  often 
.spoken  of  as  primitive  socialism — ,  individualism  or  let- 
alonism — often  called  the  police  view  of  the  state  or,  on  its 
economic  side,  laissez  faire — and  socialism.  Now,  if  we 
have  to  do  here  with  a  growth,  we  would  expect  the  suc- 
ceeding level  to  be  more  adequate  than  the  preceding  one. 
Hence  the  stage  which  follows  individualism  cannot  be 
identified  with  the  era  of  status.  It  should  have  a  different 
atmosphere  and  far  more  developed  institutions. 

Since  socialism  is  feared  by  some  as  "  the  coming  slavery," 
it  may  be  well  to  dwell  upon  the  true  evolutionary  view. 
The  modern  socialist  is  primarily  interested  in  human 
personality  and  the  conditions  of  its  development;  and  he 
is,  therefore,  not  at  all  desirous  of  returning  to  primitive 
conditions.  He  looks  forward  to  a  more  complex  and  subtle 
system  of  social  relations  resting  on  the  trained  capacities 
of  educated  men  and  women  who  are  at  once  self-reliant 
and  social-minded;  he  certainly  does  not  wish  to  turn  the 
hands  of  the  clock  backward  but  rather  to  elicit  and  make 
the  most  of  possibilities  which  are  now  allowed  to  remain 
latent  and  undeveloped.  It  follows  that  the  socialist  doei 
not  advocate  state  interference  and  dictation  in  private 
matters  and  is  hopeful  that,  as  society  becomes  healthier, 
there  will  be  little  need  for  force.  In  other  words,  he  dqf- 
sires  a  planful  world  but  not  a  despotic  world.  Let  re- 
strictions on  the  activities  and  choices  of  individuals  de- 
crease, he  says,  but  let  indivduals  become  wise  enough  to 
know  that  the  public  welfare  demands  cooperation  and 
justice.  Perhaps  I  can  best  bring  out  the  attitude  of 


212  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

modern  socialism  in  this  matter  by  showing  the  agreement 
between  the  individualist  and  the  socialist. 

During  the  period  of  status,  the  concerns  of  every  day 
life  were  regulated  in  the  most  inquisitional  manner.  One 
has  but  to  read  the  Old  Testament  to  realize  what  I  mean. 
"Therein  we  find  every  concern  of  daily  life  ruled  and 
regulated;  how  and  when  people  shall  wash  themselves, 
what  they  shall  eat  and  what  they  shall  avoid,  how  the 
food  is  to  be  cooked,  what  clothes  may  be  worn,  whom 
they  are  to  marry,  and  with  what  rites;  while  in  addition 
to  this,  their  religious  views  are  provided  carefully  for 
them  and  also  their  morals,  and  in  case  of  transgression, 
intentional  or  accidental,  the  form  of  expiation  to  be 
made."  Now  this  attempt  to  regulate  the  life  of  the  in- 
dividual is  characteristic  of  all  early  society  and  the  reason 
for  it  is  quite  largely  religious.  Religion  was  largely 
magical  in  character  in  this  early  period  and  all  sorts  of 
acts  which  we  now  regard  as  socially  indifferent  were 
then  looked  upon  as  of  tremendous  importance.  This 
view  has  gradually  been  outgrown,  and  we  now  consider 
many  acts  as  essentially  personal  which  were  formerly  sub- 
ject to  the  control  of  executive  authority.  The  sphere  of 
personal  choice  has  thus  been  enlarged;  and  this  enlarge- 
ment reflects  the  growing  rationality  of  the  social  mind. 
It  is  seen  that  no  harm  comes  from  giving  the  initiative 
of  the  individual  pretty  free  play.  It  is  upon  this  point 
that  the  socialist  agrees  with  the  individualist  for  he  does 
not  desire  governmental  meddling  in  what  are  truly 
personal  affairs.  The  pressure  of  public  opinion  suffi- 
ciently takes  care  of  personal  oddities  and  extravagances. 
Hence  the  socialist,  who  is  frankly  in  line  with  social  evolu- 
tion, is  at  one  with  the  individualist  who  writes  as  follows : 
"I  wish  to  show  that  the  only  available  method  of  dis- 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  A  SOCIAL  FREEDOM    213 

covering  the  true  limits  of  liberty  at  any  given  period  is 
the  historic.  History  teaches  us  that  there  has  been  a 
marked  tendency  (in  the  main  continuous)  to  reduce  the 
number  of  state  restrictions  on  the  absolute  freedom  of 
the  citizens.  State  prohibitions  are  becoming  fewer  and 
.more  definite,  while,  on  tjbe  other  hand,  some  of  them  are 
at  the  same  time  more  rigorously  enforced.  Freedom  to 
murder  and  to  rob  is  more  firmly  denied  to  the  individual 
while  in  the  meantime  he  has  won  the  liberty  to  think  as 
he  pleases,  to  say  a  good  deal  more  of  what  he  pleases,  to 
dress  in  accordance  with  his  own  taste,  to  eat  when  and 
what  he  likes,  and  to  do,  without  let  or  hindrance,  a 
thousand  things  which,  in  the  olden  times,  he  was  not 
allowed  to  do  without  state  supervision."1  Now  the  so- 
cialist welcomes  this  liberty  and  seeks  only  to  find  and  nourish 
the  conditions  which  will  make  it  universal  and  effective. 
He  holds  the  same  ideal  as  the  individualist  but  is  more 
realistic  in  his  outlook  on  life  as  it  is  actually  lived  by  the 
other  half.  His  complaint  is  that  the  belated  social  or- 
ganization of  the  time  makes  this  desired  liberty  effective 
for  the  few  only,  while  the  many  are  handicapped  in 
numberless  ways.  The  enemy  of  liberty  is  no  longer  the 
government — in  America  it  has  never  been  the  govern- 
ment— but  lack  of  opportunity  and  of  actual  control  of  the 
conditions  of  life. 

While  it  would  be  interesting,  we  have  not  the  time  to 
summarize  the  growth  of  religious  rights,  of  political 
rights,  of  legal  rights,  of  personal  rights,  in  fact,  of  all  the 
rights  which  taken  together  are  supposed  to  constitute 
freedom  and  which  do  actually  go  a  long  way  towards 
furnishing  the  conditions  of  freedom.  Suppose  that  we 
take  these  rights  for  granted  in  their  formal  aspect  and 
1  Wordsworth  Donisthorpe,  "Law  in  a  Free  State."  p.  80. 


214  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

ask  ourselves  whether  we  have  properly  understood  their 
conditions.  We  have  already  noted  the  shortcomings  in 
the  field  of  social  justice  of  which  society  is  guilty;  is  it 
likely,  then,  that  liberty  is  so  far  separable  from  justice 
that  liberty  can  be  present  in  its  perfection  when  justice 
is  not?  Is  not  society  so  much  a  psychological  organism 
that  an  inadequacy  in  one  aspect  is  good  grounds  for  the 
prediction  of  a  like  inadequacy  in  other  aspects?  When 
we  reflect  on  these  questions,  we  get  a  clearer  idea  of  the 
intimacy  of  the  connections  between  liberty  and  justice. 
Are  not  these  almost  two  terms  for  the  same  thing?  Is 
not  the  growth  of  justice  at  the  same  time  the  growth  of 
liberty?  If  so,  we  already  have  some  notion  of  the  condi- 
tions of  a  social  freedom. 

It  is  only  of  late  that  Americans  have  begun  to  realize 
that  their  conception  of  liberty  was  negative  and  formal; 
it  looked  backward  against  old  abuses  characteristic  of  the 
Stuart  regime  in  England  rather  than  forward.  It  ex- 
pressed a  satisfaction  with  the  dominant  tendencies  of  a 
pioneer  society  in  which  the  first  article  of  the  actual 
creed  was  the  right  to  private  property — as  much  of  it  as 
could  be  gotten — and  the  second  was  the  right  to  be  let 
alone.  But  rights  are  relative  to  conditions  and  hence 
require  continuous  criticism  and  adjustment — a  process 
which  is  thwarted  by  the  power  of  habit  and  the  inertia  of 
custom.  Has  the  employee,  for  instance,  established 
rights  in  a  business  of  which  he  is  virtually  an  integral  part 
or  do  all  rights  reside  in  the  owners?  Is  the  right  of  free 
contract  more  than  formal  when  the  parties  have  unequal 
power  and  unlike  facility  in  bargaining?  Such  questions 
show  some  of  the  conflicts  which  are  slowly  forcing  us  to 
re-interpret  and  develop  the  comparatively  simple  social 
scheme  which  we  inherited. 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  A  SOCIAL  FREEDOM    215 

It  is  due  to  this  negative  conception  of  political  life 
with  the  removal  from  its  purview  of  many  of  the  most 
vital  sides  of  society  that  political  liberty  has  been  so 
sterile  so  far  as  significant  consequences  are  concerned. 
It  has  been  superficially  dramatic  but  its  importance 
has  been  more  apparent  than  real.  It  has  reflected  the 
economic  changes  which  have  been  occurring  but  has 
seldom  been  the  point  of  departure  for  creative  direction. 
There  are,  however,  certain  signs  that  such  a  period  is 
at  last  beginning;  but  the  growing  social  perspective  of 
politics  has  been  forced  upon  America  by  problems  which 
could  no  longer  be  shunned. 

The  historical  movement  which  we  call  democracy  has 
been  rich  in  large  aspirations  covering  in  a  vague,  allusive 
way  the  whole  of  life.  It  has  been  accompanied  by  a  widen- 
ing of  sympathy  for  man  as  man  and  a  keener  realization 
of  the  intrinsic  worth  of  personality;  it  has  reached  out  into 
all  the  main  avenues  of  life  and  quickened  man's  sense  of 
fairness.  Associated  with  the  rise  of  the  working-classes  to 
a  place  in  the  public  eye  they  never  before  held,  it  has 
naturally  concerned  itself  with  the  conditions  of  their  life 
and  expressed  a  solicitude  for  their  welfare  unique  in  the 
history  of  society.  Now  this  democratic  movement  be- 
lieved for  a  long  time  that  it  had  found  adequate  expres- 
sion in  a  representative  form  of  government  founded  on 
universal  manhood  suffrage.  Such  an  extension  appealed 
to  the  imagination  as  a  sort  of  admission  into  the  counsels 
of  the  nation.  The  motto,  "One  man,  one  vote,"  seemed 
to  symbolize  an  equality  which  could  satisfy  the  pride  of 
the  most  exacting  advocate  of  the  rights  of  the  common 
man.  It  was  not  seen  that  such  equality,  important  as  it 
was  as  a  step  in  advance,  was  quite  formal  and  was  rela- 
tive to  the  function  of  the  government  and  to  the  capacity 


216  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

and  horizon  of  the  people.  If  the  government  remained 
a  routine  affair  in  large  measure  superficial  and  extra- 
social — as  was  the  tradition  with  laissez  faire — this  right 
would  be  virtually  empty.  The  recurrent  election  of 
swarms  of  nobodies  whose  business  capacity  and  integrity 
you  have  hardly  any  way  of  testing  is  to  the  more  in- 
telligent a  listless  duty,  to  others  a  habit,  to  still  others — 
the  political  specialists  whom  we  call  bosses — a  game  which 
is  worth  the  candle. 

It  was  not  until  some  time  had  elapsed  that  suspicion 
of  the  inadequacy  of  universal  suffrage  as  a  panacea  began 
to  arise.  It  was  an  instrument  to  be  used  by  democracy 
but  democracy  did  not  know  how  to  use  the  instrument. 
Carlyle's  invectives  against  parliamenteering  and  the 
superstition  that  problems  would  solve  themselves  by  the 
counting  of  heads  represent  the  first  reaction  against  the 
blind  acceptance  of  the  mechanism  of  representation  as  an 
adequate  solution  of  social  problems.  The  history  of 
political  democracy  does,  indeed,  show  how  long  a  move- 
ment of  a  passionate,  yet  vague,  type  may  be  kept  in  a 
blind  alley  and  use  forms  uncritically.  Politics  has  its  ritu- 
alism just  as  certainly  as  has  religion.  When  the  people 
have  no  large  constructive  ideals,  they  can  be  persuaded 
or,  better,  persuade  themselves  that  a  formal  procedure 
is  the  goal.  This  disappointment  with  political  democracy 
has  been  expressed  by  the  conservative,  Sir  Henry  Maine, 
and  his  words  should  be  pondered  by  the  uncritical  en- 
thusiast. He  declares  that  it  is  "one  of  the  strangest  of 
vulgar  ideas  that  a  very  wide  suffrage  could  or  would 
promote  progress,  new  ideas,  new  discoveries,  new  inven- 
tions, new  arts  of  life.  The  chances  are  that  it  will  produce 
a  mischievous  form  of  conservatism."  In  America  this 
pronouncement  has  been  in  large  measure  verified.  Forms 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  A  SOCIAL  FREEDOM    217 

are  instruments  and  their  power  for  good  and  evil  are  in- 
separable from  the  social  mind  that  uses  them.  Our 
political  parties  with  their  continual  side-stepping  of 
vital  issues,  their  union  with  industrial  greed,  their  min- 
istering to  private  ambitions,  their  devices  for  making 
politics  a  thing  apart,  are  products  of  this  refusal  to  see 
that  forms  are  not  self-sufficient.  A  country  may  be  dem- 
ocratic in  form  and  plutocratic  in  reality  because  the 
conditions  of  effective  freedom  have  not  yet  been  attained. 
But  how  can  these  conditions  be  brought  about?  By  the 
increase  of  dissatisfaction,  by  pungent  criticism,  by  a 
moral  and  civic  awakening,  by  changes  in  forms;  the  con- 
ditions of  freedom  are  spiritual  in  the  ultimate  analysis. 

Were  man  a  spirit  independent  of  his  material  environ- 
ment and  not  requiring  food  and  shelter,  were  he  able  to 
move  from  place  to  place  at  the  sole  instance  of  his  desires, 
were  the  conditions  of  his  mental  and  moral  development 
always  within  his  reach,  the  coming  of  freedom  would  have 
no  limit  set  to  it  but  his  natural  capacity.  The  tissue  of 
society  would  then  be  sustained  by  the  untrammelled  self- 
realization  of  the  individuals  composing  it.  Thought 
would  be  the  father  of  the  deed  and  creative  tendencies  of 
all  kinds  would  work  themselves  out  without  stay  or  hin- 
drance. But,  as  we  all  know,  such  is  not  the  case.  The 
path  of  life  is  laid  out  for  the  majority  before  they  are  born. 
Space  and  matter  set  the  conditions  and  give  the  material 
which  man  must  master  in  order  to  lay  the  foundation  for 
the  intellectual  and  artistic  heights  which  lie  so  hauntingly 
before  him.  And  this  foundation  does  not  lay  itself  at  the 
utterance  of  formulae;  it  must  be  achieved  by  effort.  We 
have  been  individualistic  thinkers  and  that  means  that  we 
have  hardly  deigned  to  think  about  the  social  conditions  of 
our  lives.  While  the  beginning  of  formal  democracy  has 


218  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

dawned,  experience,  experiment,  reflection  and  sympathy 
must  work  together  to  accomplish  the  slow  bending  of  the 
means  of  life  into  line  with  the  ends.  The  faith  which  so 
many  people  seem  to  entertain  that  this  task  is  an  easy 
one  or  that  it  has  been  completed  in  its  essentials  expresses 
in  my  opinion  either  the  cheery  optimism  of  a  good  place 
at  life's  table  or  a  lack  of  imagination  and  knowledge. 

Now  the  socialist  has  always  been  more  realistic  than 
the  traditional  advocate  of  political  democracy.  He  has 
not  been  deluded  by  forms  and  appearances  to  the  same 
extent.  Moreover,  he  has  not  been  guilty  of  the  na'ive 
assumption  that  democracy  can  be  completely  attained 
along  one  line,  say  the  political,  while  there  has  been  little 
advance  along  other  lines.  Society  is  too  much  of  an  or- 
ganic whole  for  that  sort  of  thing.  It  is  patent  to  every 
thinker  that  zealous  political  reformers  have  usually  been 
guilty  of  such  a  mechanical  view  of  progress.  As  though 
progress  were  external  to  the  total  life  of  the  individuals 
who  make  up  society!  Taking  the  life  of  the  majority  in 
the  concrete,  the  socialist  has  seen  that  they  lacked  an 
effective  freedom  in  spite  of  political  forms,  and  he  has 
asked  himself  to  what  this  lack  was  due.  The  answer 
which  a  close  examination  of  the  facts  forced  upon  him 
was  that  the  social  organization  was  inadequate.  This 
conclusion  he  phrased  in  the  now  well-known  demand  for 
economic  liberty  as  something  essential  to  democracy  in 
the  best  sense.  While  not  ignoring  the  value  of  political 
institutions,  he  has  refused  to  lose  sight  of  the  extra- 
political  foundation  of  society.  We  may  say,  then,  that 
socialism  has  stood  primarily  for  a  deepening  of  the  con- 
ception of  democracy,  for  a  critical  dissatisfaction  with 
formal  freedom  when  a  substantial  or  effective  freedom  was 
still  in  large  measure  to  seek.  His  aim  has  been  the  dis- 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  A  SOCIAL  FREEDOM     219 

covery  and  gradual  attainment  of  all  the  conditions  of 
social  freedom. 

What  are  some  of  these  conditions?  We  have  laid 
stress  upon  the  economic  factors  but  we  must  never  forget 
that  the  success  of  this  completer  democracy  will  rest  on 
the  equalization  of  opportunity.  And  we  must  not  con- 
ceive such  equalization  in  a  static  way.  It  means  the 
development  of  a  new  temper  in  society  as  a  whole  which 
will  have  as  its  effect  the  removal  of  personal  government 
in  industrial  affairs  as  well  as  in  political  affairs.  Such 
personal  government  has  always  meant  privilege  and  the 
spoils  system.  Equalization  of  opportunity  means  the 
replacement  of  such  personal  government  by  a  competition 
based  on  excellence.  All  civilized  countries  have  been 
working  toward  such  a  substitution  in  the  appointment 
and  advancement  of  officials.  Civil  service  has  been  a 
success  in  spite  of  the  handicaps  under  which  it  has  grown. 
Examinations  have  been  more  and  more  realistic  and 
therefore  increasingly  expressive  of  the  candidate's  ability 
in  the  particular  field.  Such  weakness  and  inadequacy  as 
remain  reflect  a  certain  scholasticism  in  our  educational 
system  itself.  Civil  service  and  the  theory  of  education 
will  develop  together.  I  am  sure  that  a  displacement  of 
personal  control  in  industry  will  help  education  by  giving 
it  a  vital  stimulus.  Education  is  too  much  a  mechanical 
thing  to-day  for  the  reason  that  society  is  mechanical  in 
temper.  The  schools  simply  reflect  their  social  setting. 

Socialism  stands,  then,  for  something  of  the  nature  of  the 
extension  of  civil  service  to  industry.  There  will  be  tenure 
of  position  with  good  behavior;  there  will  be  advancement 
from  below  upward  in  accordance  with  tested  capacity; 
there  will  be  a  stress  upon  both  knowledge  and  experience. 
In  this  way,  favoritism  and  special  privilege  will  be  elim- 


220  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

inated.  A  man  will  not  be  appointed  to  an  important 
position  because  he  is  the  son  of  his  father  or  the  cousin  of 
a  director.  I  do  not  see  how  such  a  socialism  can  help 
being  much  more  efficient  than  the  present  lack  of  system. 
Nor  do  I  see  any  conflict  between  such  a  social  and  in- 
telligent way  of  doing  things  and  the  best  sort  of  individ- 
ualism. The  kind  of  individualism  to  which  the  socialist 
objects  can  be  described  as  social  atomism  distorted  by 
special  privileges. 

But  a  competition  aiming  at  the  selection  of  excellence, 
if  it  is  to  be  democratic  and  tap  the  human  resources  of  a 
nation,  must  work  within  educational  institutions  which 
are  open  to  the  mass  of  the  people.  And  this  educational 
system  must  be  of  a  character  to  assist  in  the  objective  se- 
lection of  different  types  of  capacity.  To  do  so,  two  things 
at  least  are  necessary.  First,  the  system  must  correspond 
to  the  actual  life  of  society;  second,  the  teachers  and  ad- 
ministrators in  it  must  have  the  leisure  and  the  psycho- 
logical training  to  help  counsel  parents  and  children  in 
regard  to  the  probable  aptitude  of  those  who  pass  between 
their  hands.  Such  advice  will,  of  course,  be  only  optional 
in  character,  and  if  those  who  are  advised  wish  to  ex- 
periment along  other  lines  they  can  do  so  at  their  own  risk. 
Such  experimentation  will,  however,  be  compelled  to  work 
within  the  control  exerted  by  practical  and  theoretical 
tests.  No  one  can  go  very  far  in  any  field  to-day  who  has 
not  the  capacity  to  meet  obviously  necessary,  preliminary 
requirements.  Society  can  be  of  the  greatest  assistance 
to  the  individual  without  a  shadow  of  that  dictation  which 
has  been  called  "  the  coming  slavery."  Institutions  should 
assist  people  to  find  their  level  and  their  most  natural  line 
of  work.  The  development  of  educational  institutions  to 
act  as  impersonal  instruments  of  selection  must  pro- 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  A  SOCIAL  FREEDOM    221 

ceed  hand  in  hand  with  the  extension  of  industrial  civil 
service. 

But,  while  rightly  paying  strict  attention  to  the  indus- 
trial foundation  of  society,  I  hope  that  democracy  will  en- 
courage pure  science,  philosophy  and  art  by  offering 
fellowships  in  these  fields.  Such  encouragement  of  research 
and  of  the  spirit  of  creative  achievement  would  have  ' 

financial  results,  as  the  study  of  modern  invention  clearly 
reveals,  and  it  would  also  react  in  countless  ways  upon  the 
spiritual  temper  of  society. 

Such  a  system  of  education  as  that  outlined  would  cost 
money  but  it  would  more  than  justify  the  expense  in- 
curred by  the  increased  efficiency  it  would  bring  about. 
To  no  better  use  could  the  money  obtained  from  large 
inheritance  taxes  be  put.  The  hope  of  an  industrial  de- 
mocracy is  in  education.  Trained  intelligence  furnishes 
the  only  sufficient  foundation  for  those  impersonal  in- 
stitutions which  are  essential  to  the  achievement  and  main- 
tenance of  a  positive  freedom. 


CHAPTER  XI 
REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  WAR 

To  Americans  who  knew  little  about  the  actual  tensions 
in  Europe,  the  great  conflagration  which  swept  over  the 
Old  World  a  year  ago  last  August  seemed  a  criminal  case 
of  incendiarism.  To  their  eyes  the  world  had  appeared  so 
peaceful,  so  prosperous  and  so  progressive.  To  spend  a 
few  months  in  London,  to  go  thence  to  Berlin  or  Munich 
and  then  to  Paris  was  the  proper  thing  to  do  and  was 
so  pleasant  and  enjoyable.  Everywhere  were  cheerful, 
kindly  faces,  busy  factories,  flourishing  cities  full  of  mu- 
seums and  art  galleries;  everywhere  was  the  same  hos- 
pitable welcome.  Evidently  these  people  could  not  have 
wished  the  war.  It  must  have  been  forced  upon  them  by 
the  official  rulers,  by  those  quarrelsome  and  ambitious 
kings,  diplomats  and  officers  who,  unfortunately,  still 
have  the  destiny  of  these  otherwise  peaceful  countries  in 
their  hands. 

Such  reasoning  was  natural  and  it  was  no  surprise  to 
the  more  reflective  and  better  posted  to  read  in  magazines 
and  newspapers  day  after  day  the  scathing  indictments 
which  the  free  and  peace-loving  inhabitants  of  America 
poured  out  upon  the  Kaisers  and  Kings  of  Europe.  Such 
a  ghastly  event  demanded  that  some  cause  be  found  and 
what  was  more  plausible  than  the  explanation  that  our 
ancient  enemies,  the  kings,  had  once  more — and  we  hoped 
for  the  last  time — performed  their  Mephistophelean  work. 
And  Americans  were  more  confirmed  in  this  idea,  which 
came  to  all  of  them  with  the  force  of  an  intuition  and  with 

222 


REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  WAR  223 

that  inner  assurance  which  intuitions  are  able  to  carry 
with  them,  when  they  found  that  the  cartoonists  were 
likewise  possessed  by  the  same  idea  and  were  holding  up 
the  kingly  assassins  to  the  scorn  of  an  outraged  world. 
What  a  pity  that  such  degenerates,  dotards  and  meg- 
alomaniacs were  allowed  to  hold  in  their  hands  the  issues 
of  war  and  peace  and  to  hurl  their  armies  of  palpitating 
flesh  against  one  another !  Disgust  that  such  things  could 
still  be  was  mingled  with  a  profound  thankfulness  that  we 
at  least  were  for  ever  free  from  such  a  cause  of  war. 

How  much  of  truth  was  there  in  this  first  verdict  on  the 
causes  of  the  war  which  was  so  wide-spread  in  the  United 
States  during  the  first  few  months  of  its  tremendous 
events  while  the  spectators  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic 
were  not  as  yet  penetrated  by  the  massive  character  of  the 
world-conflict?  That  is  the  first  question  which  one  who 
reflects  on  the  war  inevitably  asks  himself. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that,  aside  from  those  tenden- 
cies to  jingoism  which  manifest  themselves  spasmodically 
in  the  United  States  as  in  all  countries,  the  nation  at  large 
is  peace-loving  and  desirous  of  doing  what  is  just  in  its 
international  relations.  "The  United  States,"  writes 
Dealey,1  "is  no  mean  factor  in  the  modern  political  world. 
From  it  has  come  the  federation,  the  written  constitution,  a 
humanitarianism  cosmopolitan  in  its  scope  and  a  wide  ap- 
plication of  the  principles  of  democracy."  We  have  been, 
on  the  whole,  prosperous,  idealistic  and  satisfied  with  the 
extent  of  territory  over  which  we  had  rule.  Did  we  not 
possess  the  greater  part  of  a  continent  with  both  the  Atlan- 
tic and  the  Pacific  washing  our  shores,  a  huge  territory 
inhabited  by  a  population  homogeneous  in  general  outlook 
if  not  in  race?  Have  we  not  from  the  first  prided  ourselves 
1  "Development  of  the  State,"  p.  233. 


224  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

on  being  a  place  of  refuge  for  the  oppressed  from  all  lands 
so  that  we  had  no  racial  animosities  and  no  marked  his- 
torical hatreds  and  fears?  Moreover,  our  geographical 
position  was  all  that  we  could  ask  from  a  military  stand- 
point. No  jealous  power  of  the  first  class  was  to  the  North 
nor  to  the  South,  while  thousands  of  miles  of  water  sep- 
arated us  from  nations  which  could  rival  us  in  wealth  and 
population.  If  ever  a  country  had  no  excuse  to  be  mil- 
itaristic it  was  ours.  And  our  sentiment  accorded  in  the 
main  with  this  history  and  this  situation.  What  was  more 
natural  than  for  such  a  favored  people  to  regard  war  as 
abnormal  and  forced  from  above  upon  a  totally  unwilling 
people  by  an  almost  diabolic  power  of  which  they  would  do 
well  to  rid  themselves  as  quickly  as  possible! 

And  yet  a  little  reflection  upon  our  own  history  should 
rid  us  of  such  a  facile  solution  of  war.  Like  all  popular 
explanations,  it  smacks  too  much  of  the  division  of  those 
who  come  before  the  judgment  seat  into  sheep  and  goats. 
Are  things  as  simple  as  this?  Is  there  a  personal  devil  to 
cause  all  the  evil  in  the  world  and  frustrate  the  good  in- 
tentions of  the  bon  dieu?  Are  the  mass  of  the  people  under 
all  conditions  so  kindly  and  broad-minded  and  considerate 
of  the  feelings  and  rights  of  others  that  it  requires  the 
inherited  power  of  a  few  individuals  to  work  this  evil  in 
the  world?  Is  this  not  good-natured  sentimentalism  to 
which  a  people  of  the  antecedents  and  position  of  Amer- 
icans are  especially  prone?  Surely  we  do  not  wish  to 
whitewash  ourselves,  and,  if  we  do  not,  can  we  judge  others 
so  harshly?  Let  us  look  at  our  own  history  for  a  moment. 

Our  war  with  Mexico  was  not  a  just  war;  the  best  that 
can  be  said  for  it  was  that  it  was  forced  by  a  sort  of  land- 
hunger  to  which  we  as  a  growing,  agricultural  nation  were 
then  subject.  And  what  would  have  been  the  result  if 


REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  WAR  225 

Mexico  had,  like  the  France  of  1870,  recovered  her  strength 
and  even  kept  pace  with  us?  Would  the  civilized  world 
now  feel  sympathetic  to  a  demand  on  the  part  of  Mexico 
for  the  restoration  of  the  land  of  which  we  had  robbed 
her?  I  do  not  wish  to  push  the  parallel  but  simply  to  use 
it  to  illustrate  how  our  situation  has  freed  us  from  dangers 
and  difficulties  which  have  overwhelmed  Europe.  "Let 
him  who  is  without  sin  cast  the  first  stone."  "The  story 
of  Naboth's  vineyard,"  writes  Professor  Tufts,  "has  been 
often  repeated  in  the  dealings  of  the  United  States  with 
Indian  lands.  Our  dealings  with  Colombia  excited  alarm 
in  South  America  and  have  been  condemned  by  many  of 
our  own  citizens."  I  think  that  we  have  done  remarkably 
well  in  our  national  and  international  relations  but  not 
well  enough,  considering  our  opportunities,  to  justify  the 
assertion  that  a  republican  form  M  government  is  a  certain 
sign  of  international  righteousness  and  that  all  its  wars 
will  be  purely  defensive. 

What,  then,  are  the  causes  of  the  present  war  which 
threatens  to  dwarf  all  other  wars  in  its  extent  and  the 
number  of  combatants  engaged?  Let  us  distinguish,  first 
of  all,  the  larger  causes,  apart  from  which  the  alignment 
of  the  various  powers  cannot  be  understood,  from  the 
occasion.  We  are  all  aware  that  the  occasion  was  the  fric- 
tion between  Serbia  and  Austria  which  culminated  in  the 
murder  of  the  heir  to  the  throne  of  the  Dual  Monarchy. 
This  was  the  match  which  set  fire  to  the  fuse  which  every- 
one in  Europe  knew  to  be  laid.  And  it  was  the  shortness 
of  this  fuse  which  made  the  dreadful  explosion  unavoidable. 
Why  was  the  fuse  so  short  and  what  was  the  character  of 
the  chemical  compounds  which  were  so  easily  detonated? 

So  much  has  been  written  and  read  about  the  war,  that 
a  general  knowledge  of  the  events  themselves  can  be  taken 


226  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

for  granted.  Even  the  story  of  the  diplomatic  correspond- 
ence between  the  various  nations  has  been  told  and  retold. 
But  the  general  public  is  beginning  to  suspect,  what  the 
scholar  knew  from  the  beginning,  that  this  correspondence 
was  a  hasty  attempt  to  undo  in  a  moment  what  had  been 
schemed  and  done  for  decades.  When  two  men  have 
been  wrestling  on  a  cliff,  they  may  seek  to  stop  their 
struggle  when  they  find  themselves  on  the  point  of  falling 
but  this  last  gasping  effort  at  release  is  unlikely  to  be  avail- 
ing; it  may,  instead,  cause  them  to  lose  their  balance  com- 
pletely and  thus  hasten  their  fall  into  the  precipice  below. 
The  thinker  must  leave  to  the  future  historian  the  task  of 
recovering,  so  far  as  possible,  all  the  events  in  the  various 
capitals  which  preceded  the  actual  declarations  of  war. 
Yet  he  may  suspect  that  the  most  important  events  were 
the  conversations  of  men  in  high  places  and  their  secret 
thoughts  on  the  whole  situation  in  Europe.  The  explo- 
sives were  there,  everybody  knew  that  they  were  there;  and 
none  of  the  nations  can  be  regarded  as  guiltless  for  all  had 
been  actors  in  the  course  of  events,  all  had  helped  to  create 
the  explosive  tension  and  to  lay  the  fuse.  If  they  saw  the 
heat  rising  to  the  danger  point  and  were  alarmed,  they 
were  really  alarmed  at  what  they  had  done  cold-bloodedly 
and  patiently  year  after  year.  They  had  loaded  the  gun, 
so  to  speak,  and  they  all  believed  that  it  would  be  fired 
very  soon  by  some  chance  event,  yet  none  of  them  would 
have  been  willing  to  alter  their  general  policy.  They  had 
all  been  playing  with  fire  and  they  had  all  known  that  they 
were  playing  with  fire,  but  they  did  not  have  the  will  to 
stop.  Why  was  this? 

Diplomacy  has  been  blamed  for  much.  Those  who 
blame  secret  diplomacy  are  probably  in  large  measure  right 
in  their  feeling  that  many  understandings  and  mutual  en- 


REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  WAR  227 

gagements  between  nations  would  be  almost  impossible 
were  these  dependent  upon  public  opinion.  Secret  diplo- 
macy makes  decisions  possible  where  there  would  other- 
wise be  indecision.  Is  there  not  a  tendency,  however,  to 
forget  that  diplomacy  is  more  the  servant  of  the  State  as  it  is 
than  a  free  agent?  Nations  have  traditionary  policies  ex- 
pressive of  their  ambitions,  and  diplomacy  regards  itself 
as  the  zealous,  perhaps  the  over-zealous,  champion  of  these 
policies.  An  adjustment  with  other  nations  whose  plans 
can  be  made  to  harmonize  by  a  process  of  give-and-take  is 
an  affair  of  skill  and  finesse  quite  comparable  to  that 
which  takes  place  in  the  business  world  when  spheres  of 
influence  and  trade-agreements  are  to  be  worked  out  be- 
tween competing  firms.  In  both  cases,  ingenuity  and 
patience  are  required.  And  the  problems  become  still 
more  difficult  when  groups  of  nations  find  themselves  in 
absolute  conflict  with  each  other.  Of  course,  it  can  be 
said  that  conflicts  of  interests  should  never  be  considered 
absolute,  that  where  there's  a  will  there's  a  way.  But  this 
is  to  mistake  an  ideal  for  international  relations  as  they 
are.  Can  we  expect  States  to  be  conciliatory  and  always 
ready  to  reach  a  compromise  when  we  know  that  individ- 
uals and  business-groups  within  these  various  states  are 
not,  but  are  ready,  instead,  to  cut  one  another's  throats? 
There  are  many  individuals  who  are  realistic  when  it  is  a 
question  of  social  relations  and  activities  with  which  they 
are  familiar,  who  do  not  expect  ambitious  railroad  mag- 
nates or  financial  syndicates  to  come  to  a  peaceful  agree- 
ment when  their  paths  cross,  and  yet  lose  all  sense  of  this 
realism  when  they  begin  to  think  of  the  relations  between 
those  still  larger  units  which  we  call  States.  The  psychol- 
ogy of  this  change  is  not  difficult  to  discover.  The  aims 
of  States  are  more  impersonal  and  less  concrete  than  the 


228  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

aims  of  individuals  and  of  business  groups.  They  are, 
therefore,  less  real  to  the  average  individual  when  he  is  not 
indoctrinated  with  Weltpolitik  or  roused  to  the  heights  of 
patriotic  enthusiasm.  Under  ordinary  conditions,  there- 
fore, they  appear  vague  and  easily  adjustable.  It  is  then 
that  diplomacy  seems  sophisticated  and  devious  and  the 
hatcher  of  trouble. 

But  while  we  have  tried  to  take  a  juster  view  of  the  na- 
ture of  diplomacy  than  is  current  when  it  is  the  object  of 
censure,  there  is  still  a  fundamental  truth  in  the  judgment 
that  secret  diplomacy  is  the  worker  of  mischief.  The 
secrecy  of  diplomacy  permits  the  drift  of  a  country  in  its 
foreign  relations  to  remain  hidden  from  those  who  are 
vitally  interested  in  it.  Nay  more,  it  encourages  social 
inattention  and  makes  almost  a  virtue  of  it.  It  involves 
the  absence  of  a  broad  social  control  of  policies  which 
ultimately  bind  the  citizens  of  the  country;  it  discourages 
wide-spread  concern  with  international  relations.  The 
consequence  is  that  a  nation  may  awake  one  fine  morning 
to  find  itself  in  a  situation  of  which  it  had  not  dreamed,  let 
alone  consciously  willed.  Can  it  be  doubted  that  the 
spread  of  education  will  bring  in  its  wake  a  protest  against 
any  unnecessary  mystery  in  these  matters  and  a  keener 
sense  of  responsibility? 

We  have  expressed  the  opinion  that  even  present-day 
diplomacy  mainly  expresses  the  State  as  it  is.  And  this 
conclusion  brings  us  to  the  very  interesting  topic,  the  na- 
ture of  the  State.  Let  us  attempt  to  gain  some  insight  into 
the  character  of  the  various  States  which  are  now  at  war 
with  one  another.  Perhaps  we  can  then  better  understand 
why  they  continued  to  play  with  fire  till  they  were  burned. 

It  is  impossible  to  understand  the  character  of  States 
apart  from  some  knowledge  of  their  origin.  Practically 


REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  WAR  229 

all  States  of  any  size  have  had  their  origin  in  warfare. 
They  have  been  moulded  by  wars  of  conquest  and  wars  of 
defense  against  aggression.  Consequently,  the  attitude 
of  States  toward  one  another  has  been  that  of  veiled  sus- 
picion and  their  relations  have  been  dominantly  selfish  if 
not  overtly  hostile.  We  are  told  that  those  early  social 
groups  which  formed  the  nucleus  of  our  present  territorial 
States  seldom,  if  ever,  dreamed  of  treating  another  group 
in  a  friendly  way.  To  rob  or  slay  the  members  of  another 
tribe  was  laudable  conduct.  In  fact,  morality  was  an  in- 
ternal affair  which  men  never  thought  of  extending  to 
their  dealings  with  individuals  of  other  groups.  As  time 
passed,  the  boundaries  of  the  more  successful  States  were 
enlarged  and  this  enlargement  was  due  to  the  military 
virtues  of  the  subjects  combined  with  able  leadership  on 
the  part  of  kings.  The  history  of  the  formation  of  France 
and  its  welding  into  a  fairly  homogeneous  nation  makes 
extremely  interesting  reading  for  those  who  wish  to  under- 
stand the  origins  of  the  national  units  of  Europe.  With 
this  unification  went  the  gradual  adoption  of  a  common 
language  and  the  growth  of  those  sentiments  of  fellowship 
and  social  likemindedness  which  are  called  patriotism. 
But  we  must  never  forget  that  this  patriotism  has  two 
faces  like  Janus  of  Old  Rome.  One  face  is  smiling  and 
benevolent  and  looks  inward  to  approve  the  loyalty  of  the 
citizens  to  their  common  home  and  their  traditions  of 
suffering  and  achievement.  Such  patriotism  expresses  a 
psychological  unity,  the  sense  of  mutual  understanding, 
of  kinship  in  mind  and  race,  and  the  knowledge  of  a  com- 
mon lot.  The  other  face  of  this  sentiment  is,  as  we  have 
said,  suspicious  if  not  threatening.  It  gazes  out  over  the 
ramparts  of  seas  and  mountains  and  fortresses  which  cir- 
cumvallate  the  land  of  which  it  is  the  guardian  and  pro- 


230  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

lector.  Thus  has  it  always  been;  will  it  ever  be  otherwise? 
Will  nations  always  need  to  be  on  their  guard  in  a  state  of 
what  is  called  preparedness  or  will  this  vigilance  relax  as 
time  marks  changes  in  the  relations  of  States? 

States  have  considered  themselves  self-sufficient  and 
their  virtues  have  been  self-regarding,  to  use  a  term  of 
which  the  moralist  is  fond.  The  responsibility  of  the 
State  has  been  toward  its  citizens  present  and  to  come. 
A  nurse  who  has  been  given  charge  of  a  child  feels  the  ut- 
most responsibility  for  its  safety  and,  in  a  fire  or  in  the  mad 
rush  of  a  crowd,  holds  the  little  one  tight  and  thinks  only 
of  its  escape.  It  is  this  definite  concentration  of  respon- 
sibility which  finds  expression  in  Riimelin's  classic  phrase, 
solus  publica  suprema  lex.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that, 
up  to  the  present,  self-preservation  and  expansion  have 
been  the  dominant  aims  of  States;  and,  when  one  studies 
history  sympathetically,  one  realizes  that  any  other  em- 
phasis would  be  unnatural.  The  State,  as  a  product  of 
nature,  does  not  seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God  in  the  hope 
that  empire,  dominion,  wealth,  power  and  safety  will  be 
added  unto  it. 

We  can  now  better  understand  why  the  nations  of 
Europe  had  been  consciously  playing  with  fire  and  did  not 
have  the  will  to  stop.  There  had  been  more  qualms  of 
conscience  among  the  citizens  than  ever  before  but  the 
momentum  of  the  old,  dominant  view  of  the  State  was  as 
yet  too  great.  New  forces,  championing  new  values  and 
new  aims,  were  gathering  but  they  were  still  too  weak  and 
still  with  too  little  leverage  upon  the  official  and  organized 
structure  of  the  State  to  challenge  successfully  these  his- 
toric aims.  Voices  sounded  here  and  there  in  protest  against 
this  policy  or  that,  but  they  were  weak,  disincarnated 
voices  with  no  official  habitation  that  they  should  be 


REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  WAR  231 

listened  to.  They  were  voices  of  the  future,  of  aspiration 
and  hope  and  the  practical  men  to  whom  these  voices  came 
momentarily  and  unavoidably  shook  their  heads  and  said, 
"Shall  these  things  be?"  for  practical  men  are  men  of  the 
present.  So  the  tide  of  affairs  rolled  onward. 

So  the  mighty  collision  came.  And  is  it  not  absurd  to 
ask,  Who  willed  it?  as  though  some  one  individual  had 
the  power  to  throw  unwilling  States  against  one  another 
in  a  life-and-death  struggle?  The  various  States  willed 
it — not  consciously  as  an  individual  wills  some  particular 
act  but  through  the  accepted  pressure  of  their  aims  and 
established  outlook.  This  acceptance  is  revealed  in  the 
character  of  their  international  program  and  in  the  extent 
of  their  military  preparedness.  These  two  features  go  to- 
gether although  the  program  is  usually  the  more  dynamic 
and  aggressive.  We  must  not  forget,  however,  that  the 
past  works  into  the  present  and  determines  many  actions 
and  attitudes  which  would  otherwise  have  no  sufficient 
ground.  The  State,  like  the  individual,  drags  its  past  along 
with  it,  often  as  a  heavy  burden  of  which  it  would  fain  be 
rid.  The  sins  of  the  fathers  are  visited  on  the  children  to 
the  third  and  fourth  generation.  France  is  to-day  being 
punished  for  the  adoration  which  the  fathers  lavished  on 
the  first  and  third  Napoleons;  England  is  suffering  from  its 
lack  of  care  for  social  justice;  Germany  for  the  too  wanton 
use  of  the  mailed  fist;  and  Russia  for  its  greed  of  power. 
Neither  ethics  nor  political  philosophy  should  ignore  the 
continuity  of  cause  and  effect.  The  past  must  be  taken 
along  with  the  present  if  we  wish  to  make  an  adequate 
judgment  and  not  merely  to  lapse  into  partisanship.  But 
we  must  not  make  the  past  too  much  into  a  fate  which 
can  never  be  shaken  off.  The  great  question  after  this 
war  will  be  this,  Have  the  nations  purified  themselves  by 


232  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

the  fire  which  is  consuming  them,  so  that  they  can  make 
a  new  start  more  free  from  the  hatreds  and  false  ambitions 
which  they  have  inherited?  Such  is  the  hope  of  the  hu- 
manitarian. 

Let  us  glance  for  a  moment  at  the  preparedness  of  the 
nations  for  war.  France  incorporated  90%  of  all  males 
arriving  at  military  age  into  her  armed  forces  in  time  of 
peace,  expended  $311,131,166  a  year  on  its  military  estab- 
lishments and  had  ready  for  emergency  3,878,000  fully 
trained  men  out  of  a  population  of  39,000,000  souls.  Ger- 
many incorporated  50%  of  its  males  in  its  peace-time  army, 
expended  $322,467,615  a  year  and  was  supposed  to  have 
about  4,000,000  instructed  men  out  of  a  population  of 
70,000,000.  Thus  these  two  countries  had  spent  approxi- 
mately the  same  amount  per  year  on  their  armies.  This 
expenditure  was  a  severe  drain  on  the  resources  of  both 
countries.  We  must  add  to  this  monetary  loss  the  removal 
from  industry  of  so  many  young  men  in  the  prime  of  their 
physical  strength.  Now  what  was  true  of  these  two  coun- 
tries held  in  like  measure  of  Russia,  Austria,  Italy  and,  in 
somewhat  less  degree,  of  the  smaller  countries  like  Belgium 
and  Sweden. 

While  maintaining  a  much  smaller,  professional  army, 
Great  Britain  supported  a  navy  of  tremendous  size  and 
strength  and  aimed  to  keep  it  equal  in  fighting  power  to 
the  navies  of  any  two  other  nations.  Such  a  navy  was 
very  costly  but  was  felt  to  be  necessary  if  Great  Britain 
was  to  retain  control  of  the  ocean  and  protect  her  commu- 
nications with  her  colonies  and  dependencies.  While  a 
land-power,  Germany  found  that  her  future  lay  upon  the 
ocean  and  so  felt  herself  bound  to  expand  her  navy  or  else 
acknowledge  a  permanent  dependence  upon  the  good-will 
of  her  chief  competitor,  England,  a  dependence  which  the 


REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  WAR  233 

increasing  friction  of  the  two  nations,  due  to  their  commer- 
cial expansion,  made  impossible. 

Such  was  the  preparedess  which  made  Europe  an  armed 
camp  and  constituted  a  burden  under  which  the  nations 
groaned.  If  a  war  would  end  this  preparedness,  many  were 
almost  ready  to  welcome  a  war.  France  was  forced  to  bor- 
row money  to  meet  her  military  needs  and  Germany  was 
adding  new  forms  of  taxation  to  the  old.  A  more  vicious 
situation  can  hardly  be  imagined.  If  this  is  what  compet- 
itive nationalism  leads  to,  has  not  the  State  outlived  its 
usefulness?  What  new  forces  can  be  brought  to  bear  to 
lift  the  various  States  out  of  such  mechanical  balances  as 
Triple  Alliance  over  against  Triple  Entente?  Is  such  pre- 
paredness to  go  on  forever  until  some  group  of  harmonious 
interests  and  dominant  power  is  formed  which  may  com- 
pel peace?  Such  questions  as  these  arise  for  our  reflection. 

We  have  said  that  the  external  policies  of  States  are  more 
dynamic  than  their  military  condition.  Had  the  European 
nations  no  room  for  expansion  in  the  world,  it  is  quite 
thinkable  that  an  equilibrium  might  have  been  established. 
This  would  have  been  the  case  in  western  Europe  at  least. 
Had  France  had  no  colonial  ambitions  and  hopes,  she 
might  have  acknowledged  her  defeat  in  the  Franco- 
Prussian  war  as  final  seeing  that  her  population  was  prac- 
tically stationary  while  that  of  Germany  was  steadily  in- 
creasing. Perhaps  such  an  acknowledgement  might  have 
paved  the  way  to  a  lessening  of  the  tension  in  Europe  and 
permitted  other  forces  of  a  constructive  character  to  gain 
a  hearing.  But  Europe  dominated  Africa  and  Asia  and  the 
rivalries  which  had  arisen  at  home  took  the  world  for  their 
theatre.  Commercial  expansion  and  colonial  enterprise 
added  fuel  to  the  flame  of  the  traditional  jealousies  and 
fears.  New  causes  for  friction  appeared  in  every  part 


234  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

of  the  globe.  Thus  the  self-preserving,  self -regarding  State 
was  given  a  new  lease  of  life.  It  seemed  that  the  slow 
march  of  time  alone  could  establish  that  equilibrium  in 
the  world  at  large  which  colonial  enterprise  and  commer- 
cial expansion  had  prevented  in  the  homelands. 

Nothing  is  more  illuminating  in  this  connection  than  the 
growth  of  Anglo-German  rivalry.  Up  to  1885,  there  was 
no  serious  conflict  between  these  two  countries.  Instead, 
they  had  been  friends.  On  January  5  of  that  year  Mr. 
Joseph  Chamberlain  said:  "If  foreign  nations  are  deter- 
mined to  pursue  distant  colonial  enterprises,  we  have  no 
right  to  prevent  them."  The  world  looked  larger  even 
that  short  while  ago  than  it  does  now.  As  time  passed, 
Germany's  growth  and  her  persistent  efforts  to  find  room 
in  the  world  for  her  surplus  population  and  a  sphere  for  her 
enterprise  gradually  induced  an  altered  tone.  "  For  when 
the  din  of  war  dies  down,"  writes  J.  Holland  Rose,1  "we 
shall  realize  that  behind  the  lust  of  conquest  there  was  an 
elemental  force  impelling  the  German  people  forward. 
Their  population  is  ever  increasing;  and  they  must  have 
more  elbow-room  in  some  of  the  sparsely  inhabited  lands." 
As  a  result  of  this  pressure  and  acting  under  the  guidance  of 
the  traditional  ideals  of  the  State,  the  present  Kaiser 
adopted  a  Weltpolitik  which  threatened  England's  undis- 
turbed rule  of  distant  dominions  and  this  new,  more  ag- 
gressive policy  on  the  part  of  a  people  who  had  hitherto 
stayed  peacefully  at  home  was  disconcerting,  to  say  the 
least,  to  the  older  country.  I  have  yet  to  hear  of  a  business 
firm  which  welcomes  an  aggressive  rival.  And  it  was  the 
fatality,  as  one  English  writer  puts  it,  of  Germany  to  have 
appeared  on  the  scene  so  late.  Always  seeking  a  chance  to 
expand,  she  was  always  finding  herself  checkmated  by 
1  "The  Origins  of  the  War,"  p.  187. 


REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  WAR  235 

some  one  power  or  by  a  combination  of  powers  linked  to- 
gether to  defend  their  mutual  interests.  In  Brazil,  by  the 
United  States  in  pursuance  of  a  half -understood  policy;  in 
South  Africa,  by  Great  Britain  to  protect  her  colonies  and 
commercial  predominance;  in  Morocco,  by  Great  Britain 
and  France  together;  in  the  Bagdad  enterprise,  by  Great 
.Britain  who  feared  for  India;  in  Persia,  by  Great  Britain 
and  Russia.  No  wonder  that  Germany,  thrown  back  on 
herself  in  this  fashion,  became  more  and  more  aggressive 
and  threatening.  We  must  look  at  this  situation  in  the 
light  of  the  traditional  State.  We  are  not  called  upon  to 
name  evil  good  or  to  exonerate  either  party  to  the  conflict. 
What  we,  as  rational  beings,  are  called  upon  to  do  is  to 
understand. 

If  wars  are  to  be  avoided  in  the  future,  States  must  try 
to  understand  each  other.  They  must  separate  the  legiti- 
mate from  the  illegitimate  ambitions  of  their  neighbors 
and  not  simply  oppose  a  blind,  selfish  veto  on  all  ambi- 
tions alike  because  it  suits  their  immediate  interests  or 
seems  the  easiest  thing  to  do.  No  nation  should  regard 
its  international  program  as  above  criticism.  But  this  de- 
mand implies  a  change  in  the  outlook  of  States  and  peoples 
toward  one  another.  It  is  the  hope  of  the  socialist  that 
this  gradual  alteration  of  attitude  will  come  to  pass  as  de- 
mocracy spreads  over  the  world.  He  is  convinced  that 
the  inhabitants  of  the  various  countries  have  little  quarrel 
with  each  other.  It  is  the  too  vigorous,  monopoly-seeking 
entrepreneur  who  is  able  to  make  his  sovereign  State  his 
protector  and  agent  who  is  back  of  much  of  the  mischief 
which  is  hatched.  As  George  Lansbury  writes:  "I  know 
the  peoples,  whatever  their  creed,  race,  or  color,  have  no 
quarrel  with  one  another  except  that  which  is  created  and 
fostered  by  governments  and  vested  interests,  and  know- 


236  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

ing  this  and  the  horrors  connected  with  war,  I  am  proud 
to  be  a  pacifist."  It  is  the  increasing  pressure  within  the 
States  of  this  point  of  view  which  will  change  the  interna- 
tional policies. 

In  this  connection,  I  cannot  resist  quoting  an  analysis 
of  the  colonial  situation  in  Africa  by  E.  D.  Morel,  an  able 
and  objective  scholar.  "On  what  logical  grounds  could 
Trance'  be  made  to  say  to  'Germany ' :  'I,  with  my  forty 
millions  of  people,  claim  the  right  to  possess  four  and  one- 
half  million  square  miles  of  territory  in  Africa  where  I  dif- 
ferentiate against  your  goods,  and  I  claim  the  right  to  in- 
crease my  possessions  still  further;  but  I  deny  you,  with 
your  sixty-five  millions  of  people  and  expanding  birth  rate 
and  foreign  trade,  the  right  to  hold  a  single  inch  of  African 
soil?'  .  .  .  That  way  lies,  not  peace,  but  endless  strife;  not 
statesmanship,  but  madness;  not  relief  for  the  peoples  of 
France,  Britain  and  Germany,  but  added  burdens."  The 
socialist  knows  that  back  of  colonial  enterprise  has  lain 
the  desire  for  special  privileges  and  monopolies,  fiscal  and 
otherwise. 

For  centuries  Europe  has  been  in  a  state  of  unstable 
equilibrium  and  this  instability  was  increased  by  the  ex- 
tension of  interests  and  dominion  to  the  world  at  large. 
Those  who  believe  in  the  Marxian  principle  of  economic 
determinism  in  its  extreme  form  are,  therefore,  inclined 
to  hold  that  there  is  no  hope  for  a  final  peace  until  all  the 
backward  regions  of  the  earth  have  been  fully  exploited 
and  industry  is  world-wide. 

But,  in  the  examination  of  the  formal  doctrines  of  Marx 
which  we  undertook  in  the  early  chapters  of  the  present 
study  of  modern  democracy,  we  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  is  untrue  to  the  facts  of  human  life  to  exalt  the 
economic  motive  to  the  lonely  preeminence  assigned  it  by 


REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  WAR  237 

the  fathers  of  "scientific  socialism."  Human  nature  is 
very  complex  and  other  instincts  and  values  than  the 
economic  are  native  to  it.  There  is  land-hunger;  there  is 
the  struggle  for  food;  there  are  racial  and  national  rivalries 
which  date  into  the  past  and  which  will  give  color  and  in- 
tensity to  the  future:  but  there  are,  also,  values  which 
bridge  these  chasms  and  conflicts  and  make  the  world 
something  of  a  psychical  unity.  There  are  deeds  and 
qualities  which  are  universally  admired  and  draw  citizens 
of  different  States  together.  In  spite  of  friction,  nations 
need  one  another  and  supplement  one  another.  The 
thinker  must  never  lose  his  perspective  and  persuade  him- 
self that  social  groups  are  of  necessity  enemies. 

Before  the  present  war  began,  international  bonds  of 
various  kinds  were  being  strengthened.  In  fact,  the  growth 
of  a  vital  recognition  of  the  interdependence  of  nations 
had  been  so  rapid  all  along  the  line  that  many  were  be- 
ginning to  persuade  themselves  that  a  new  era  had  dawned, 
an  era  of  a  firmly  founded  internationalism.  It  was  the 
disappointment  of  these  high  hopes  that  led  to  much  of 
the  moral  pessimism  which  ensued  upon  the  outbreak  of 
the  war.  The  internal  bonds  are  as  yet  of  iron,  the  external 
bonds  of  silk.  While  the  idealist  may  have  over-estimated 
the  thickness  of  these  silken  bonds  which  havel>een  arising 
between  nations,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  are  there 
and  that  new  ones  will  be  added  from  year  to  year.  The 
evolutionist  knows  that  it  is  merely  a  matter  of  time  till 
they  are  strong  enough  to  resist  those  centrifugal  tenden- 
cies which  the  State  has  nourished.  He  looks  forward  to 
what  may  be  called  the  organic  coalescence  of  nations,  the 
growth  of  solidarity  in  place  of  isolation.  As  Ellen  Key 
points  out,  the  socialist  of  to-day  realizes  that  the  peace- 
movement  has  had  a  history  similar  to  that  of  socialism 


238  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

itself.  First  came  the  dreamers  who  talked  of  federations 
which  ignored  national  conditions  and  advocated  con- 
trivances which  had  no  vital  connection  with  actuality. 
These  were  the  Utopians  of  the  peace-movement.  These 
pacifists  of  the  older  school  helped  to  familiarize  humanity 
with  the  idea  of  peace  and  with  its  desirableness  even 
though  they  did  not  persuade  many  of  its  immediate 
possibility.  The  newer  pacifists,  on  the  other  hand,  "con- 
sider that  the  propaganda  in  action  which  cannot  fail  to 
hasten  on  peace  consists  in  promoting  everywhere  firm 
and  binding  international  institutions.  With  inevitable 
necessity  these  must  finally  be  crowned  by  the  super- 
structure of  a  confederation  of  States,  which  will  really 
and  permanently  supersede  the  state  of  war  and  usher  in 

/    ttfe  state  of  peace."  1 

\/  It  is  this  more  realistic,  evolutionary  view  of  pacifism 
which  the  thinker  must  favor.  He  will  look  upon  the 
growth  of  peace  as  proceeding  step  by  step  with  the  estab- 
lishment of  fixed  boundaries  between  nations.  But  he  will 
also  hold  that  the  psychical  conditions  favorable  to  peace 
will  be  even  more  important  and  that  they  will  hasten  the 
coming  of  the  more  physical  equilibrium  because  support- 
ing the  spirit  of  compromise  and  fairness.  As  education 
is  slowly  diffused  among  them,  nations  will  come  to  under- 
stand each  other  better.  The  alien  will  no  longer  be 
thought  of  as  the  enemy  as  he  has  been  in  the  past.  The 
sociologist  tells  us  that  railroad,  steamship,  telegraph  and 
cable  have  had  as  great  an  effect  upon  society  as  the  ma- 
chine in  the  factory.  Would  such  immense  nations  as  the 
United  States  and  Russia  have  been  possible  without 
rapid  means  of  communication?  The  post  and  the  tel- 
egraph have  helped  to  make  that  likemindedness  without 
1  Ellen  Key,  "The  Younger  Generation,"  p.  62, 


REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  WAR  239 

which  a  nation  is  merely  a  clumsy  aggregation  held  to- 
gether for  administrative  purposes.  The  South  and  the 
North  of  our  Civil  War  did  not  understand  one  another, 
and  such  misunderstanding  was,  beyond  question,  a  potent 
cause  of  the  war.  Communication,  travel  and  education 
slowly  but  inevitably  absorb  away  this  profound  difference 
in  ethos.  It  is  to  the  breaking  down  of  insularity  and 
ignorance,  to  the  removal  of  monopolistic  1  desires  and  the 
development  of  a  sense  of  cooperation,  scientific  and  in- 
dustrial, that  the  evolutionary  pacifist  looks.  These 
changes  will  bring  with  them  a  new  spirit  which  will  affect 
the  ideals  of  the  State. 

But  what  part  will  socialism  play  in  this  evolution? 
Perhaps  some  of  my  readers  have  wondered  at  the  small 
space  which  I  have  given  to  this  topic  in  my  reflections. 
And  yet  the  omission  has  been  more  apparent  than  real. 
Surprise  has  often  been  expressed  that  international 
socialism  was  unable  to  do  more  than  it  did  to  stem  the 
torrent  which  burst  over  Europe.  But  surely  only  the 
thoughtless  who  did  not  comprehend  the  character  of  the 
State  of  the  present  and  the  embryonic  stage  of  inter- 
national socialism  were  really  surprised.  Socialists  did 
what  they  could  but  they  knew  almost  immediately  that 
this  would  be  little.  The  child  cannot  fight  with  the  parent 
with  any  hope  of  success  while  the  parent  is  still  in  the  full 
vigor  of  manhood;  yet  the  socialist  believes  that  his  move- 
ment, as  it  joins  hands  with  the  various  forces  sweeping 
the  world  on  to  democracy,  will  be  the  Zeus  which  will 
overthrow  the  Cronos  who  occupies  the  throne  of  human 
affairs.  Shall  we  cry  shame  to  a  movement  which  is  only 

1 1  believe  that  Cobden  was  on  the  right  track,  even  though  he  over- 
simplified national  and  international  relations.  The  "  protective  system  " 
when  extended  to  spheres  of  influence  is  a  fruitful  source  of  friction. 


240  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

a  half-century  old  while  ignoring  the  fact  that  organized 
Christianity  which  has  been  in  the  world  some  nineteen 
centuries  was  as  powerless?  That  would  be  to  use  false 
scales  in  our  judgment.  Those  who  have  followed  my 
argument  are  in  a  position  to  realize  the  massive  com- 
plexity of  human  relations.  Socialism  cannot  as  yet 
escape  from  nationalism;  that  was  the  error  of  fifty  years 
ago.  Socialism  must  work  within  the  various  nations  as  a 
ferment  until  they  are  ready  to  be  friends. 

One  great  advantage  which  the  socialism  of  the  working- 
classes  possesses  is  its  spirit  of  international  fraternity. 
For  this  reason,  it  will  be  an  ever  increasing  tendency 
working  for  fairness  and  justice.  It  teaches  Russian  and 
German,  Italian  and  Austrian,  Englishman  and  French- 
man to  shake  hands  and  to  call  each  other  comrades.  In 
spite  of  the  temporary  severance  this  war  will  cause  and 
has  already  caused,  this  attitude  will  survive.  These 
workmen  meet,  not  as  competitors,  but  as  the  exploited. 
They  are  aware  of  a  common  lot  and  this  consciousness 
gives  them  a  bond  of  unity  than  which  there  are  few, 
if  any,  stronger.  So  far  as  they  are  competitors,  they  are 
indirect  competitors.  And  they  are,  moreover,  convinced 
that  much  of  this  economic  competition  which  divides 
nations  is  unnecessary.  It  is  as  vicious  in  its  motivation 
as  it  is  bad  in  its  consequences.  In  the  place  of  competi- 
tion, the  socialist  desires  to  see  cooperation  found  itself. 
The  only  competition  he  favors  is  that  of  excellence  and 
efficiency. 

When  our  thoughts  wander  from  the  deep-lying  causes 
of  the  war  to  the  near  future  when  the  din  of  battle  has 
died  down,  there  arises  an  unlimited  field  for  reflection. 
And  here,  again,  there  is  no  need  to  play  the  prophet.  The 
wise  man  does  not  seek  to  foretell  particular  events  but  only 


REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  WAR  241 

to  dissect  out  tendencies  of  which  time  is  the  servant  and  not 
the  complete  master.  These  tendencies  may  conflict  and 
we  cannot  always  correctly  estimate  their  changing  balance 
but  they  will  exist  in  the  future  just  as  they  have  in  the 
past.  In  this  regard,  society  is  like  an  individual.  Just 
as  we  can  foretell  the  spiritual  future  of  an  individual  with 
a  large  degree  of  accuracy  if  we  know  his  heredity  and  his 
habits  and  his  general  circumstances,  so  we  can  estimate 
pretty  soundly  the  hesitating  future  of  society.  We  do 
not  know  what  battles  will  be  fought  or  who  will  be  the 
victors,  we  do  not  know  exactly  where  the  boundaries 
between  nations  will  be  drawn;  but  we  do  know  that  man 
has  advanced  for  centuries  from  autocracy  to  that  which 
approaches  democracy  and  we  do  know  that  this  process 
will  continue.  The  developed  man  demands  rights  and  jus- 
tice for  himself,  and  the  increase  of  such  demands  spells  de- 
mocracy. Stagnation  or  democracy,  this  is  the  antithesis. 
And  nothing  in  the  swift  movement  of  events  which  the 
whole  surface  of  the  globe  presents  to  the  observer  presages 
stagnation. 

Will  this  war  set  back  democracy?    I  do  not  think  so. 
It  will  bring  in  new  elements  such  as  an  increased  respect  i 
for  organization  and  intelligence  but  it  will  not  turn  the  I 
eyes  of  mankind  away  from  the  cost  and  futility  of  the  old  / 
ambitions.    Surely  there  will  be  a  reaction  in  all  the  coun-  / 
tries  against  those  ideals  and  class-controls  which  made  this 
monstrous  waste  of  human  energy  and  lives  a  possible' 
thing.     There  will  be  the  demand  for  a  revaluation  of 
values,  and  human  values  will  move  nearer  the  seat  of 
government.    Of  course,  this  advance  does  not  necessarily 
mean  the  quick  ascendency  of  American  political  methods 
and  usages  but  it  does  mean  the  growth  of  the  spiritual 
foundation  of  democracy,  a  foundation  which  will  express 


242  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

itself  in  different  countries  in  different  ways  according  to 
the  genius  of  the  country. 

But  what  part  will  America  play?  What  will  be  its 
reaction  to  these  events  of  which  we  are  the  breathless 
spectators?  That  is,  indeed,  a  vital  subject  for  reflection 
since  upon  the  character  of  that  massed  reflection  of  Amer- 
ican citizens  which  is  called  public  opinion  rests  the  choice 
which  we  shall  make. 

That  current  of  thought  which  represents  the  traditional 
State  is  already  in  rapid  movement.  We  must  arm,  it  is 
said,  while  there  is  yet  time.  The  world  is  an  armed, 
berserker,  robber  world;  not  the  peaceful,  property- 
respecting,  orderly  world  we  had  supposed.  Let  us  arm 
lest  we  be  a  spoil  to  the  victor  and  be  drawn  captive  after 
his  chariot.  Let  us  see  to  it  that  university  students  be 
trained  so  that  they  may  become  officers.  Let  our  pro- 
fessional army  be  increased  to  stand  as  a  defense  at  our 
shores.  Let  the  navy  be  enlarged  so  that  it  may  bid  de- 
fiance to  the  world.  Then  we  shall  be  safe  and  may  even 
venture  forth  to  protect  our  interests  in  other  lands. 
Such  a  policy  of  preparedness  is  urged  upon  us  by  common- 
sense  and  by  patriotism.  To  do  otherwise  is  foolishness, 
Utopianism,  unwise  parsimony. 

What  must  the  socialist  say  to  this  natural  reaction? 
He  must  judge  between  two  ingredients  in  it,  the  spirit  of 
the  reaction  and  the  program.  Many  a  socialist  may  feel 
that  it  is  unwise  for  any  particular  nation  to  break  too 
hastily  with  the  past  and  to  disarm  itself  while  other 
nations  remain  armed.  Such  an  action  might  court,  if  not 
disaster,  at  least  lack  of  influence  in  those  questions  which 
are  still  coming  up  for  international  consideration.  Yet 
all  the  while,  the  socialist  would  maintain  that  the  spirit 
in  which  this  preparedness  was  maintained  was  even  more 


REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  WAR  243 

important  than  the  military  strength  itself.  He  would 
not,  therefore,  feel  bitterly  aggrieved  at  a  fair  measure  of 
preparedness  if  this  were  unaccompanied  by  the  militaris- 
tic spirit  or  by  the  evident  intention  of  certain  classes 
in  society  to  employ  it  for  their  own  ends.  When  looked 
at  in  this  light,  the  army  and  the  navy  would  appear  as  a 
relatively  necessary  burden  which  he  would  regret.  He 
would  regret  it  for  he  knows  how  much  better  the  same 
amount  of  money  could  be  used  for  education  and  social 
reform.  "Millions  for  defense,  thousands  for  health  or 
education,  has  been  our  national  policy."  He  would 
regret  it  also  because  he  would  never  be  quite  certain  how 
necessary  the  expenditure  was.  Nations,  like  individuals, 
may  be  the  victims  of  traditionary  fears.  Are  there  not, 
besides,  other  weapons  such  as  the  boycott  which  can  be 
used  as  effectively  as  the  big  stick?  If,  then,  the  socialist 
had  responsibility  in  his  hands,  he  would  maintain  just 
about  the  measure  of  preparedness  that  we  now  have  but 
he  would  see  that  the  money  expended  was  expended  effi- 
ciently and  wholesomely.  But  as  a  minority  party,  social- 
ism has  the  right  to  emphasize  the  attitude  which  it  hopes 
to  see  grow  in  this  and  other  countries,  in  the  full  knowl- 
edge that  the  majority  parties  which  represent  the  State  as 
it  is  will  act  in  accordance  with  custom  and  pass  measures 
looking  for  even  an  extreme  degree  of  preparedness.  The 
danger  which  confronts  society  is  not  a  too  hasty  pacifism 
but  a  blossoming  out  of  a  militarism  without  an  adequate 
ethical  control  back  of  it.  The  reflective  socialist  is  con- 
vinced that  much  of  the  present  cry  for  preparedness  is 
hysterical  and  due  to  a  misunderstanding  of  the  deep- 
lying  causes  which  led  to  the  European  war.  The  days 
of  Louis  the  Fourteenth  have  not  returned. 

But  the  mature  socialist  has  a  counsel  nearer  his  heart 


244  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

when  he  thinks  of  America  with  her  wealth  and  potential 
power.  He  would  like  to  see  her  play  a  truly  beau  role  in 
this  stirring  time.  War  and  all  things  connected  with  war 
have  their  spectacular,  almost  their  melodramatic  side. 
It  is  so  easy  to  be  carried  away  from  a  growing  concern 
with  social  problems  by  the  sudden  boom  of  cannon.  So 
well  is  this  known  that  it  is  a  matter  of  general  knowledge 
that  conservative  statesmen  in  Europe  have  made  a  direct 
appeal  to  the  warlike  instincts  of  a  people  when  internal 
troubles  threatened  something  approaching  a  revolution. 
It  has  been  hinted  that  such  a  motive  played  a  part  in  the 
decision  of  Italy  to  cast  her  fortunes  to  the  hazard  of  battle. 
Moreover,  the  socialist  is  aware  that,  during  wars,  social 
advance  is  delayed  and  social  reforms  forgotten.  Shall  we, 
who  are  not  immediately  threatened,  allow  ourselves  to 
mark  time?  Democracy  will  be  awake  after  the  war  as  it 
has  never  been  before  and  many  of  the  old  accepted  na- 
tional ambitions  will  be  fiercely  challenged.  Would  not 
we  as  a  people  be  crestfallen  if  we  were  to  find  our  increased 
preparedness  unnecessary? — if  here,  again,  we  failed  to  be 
leaders  but  were  led  by  our  fears?  But,  it  will  be  replied, 
the  risk  is  too  great.  Preparedness  is  only  a  form  of  in- 
surance. But  all  great  national  choices  involve  risk — 
just  as  all  important  personal  choices  do.  He  who  will 
never  risk  anything  will  never  make  a  momentous  advance. 
Adventure  is  of  the  very  nature  of  life. 

And  yet  hesitation  may  remain.  An  individual  may 
take  a  risk,  but  is  it  right  for  a  State  to  do  so?  Is  not 
self-preservation  the  first  duty  of  a  State?  Such  would  be 
the  answer  of  the  traditional  State  with  its  suspicions  and 
aggressions.  In  expectation  of  this  reply  we  have  tried  to 
show  that  the  risk  is  not  great,  that  the  measure  of  pre- 
paredness we  have  is  sufficient.  Shall  we  give  a  sign  to 


REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  WAR  245 

an  exhausted  Europe  that  she  must  take  on  again  the  bur- 
den of  armament  of  which  she  will  more  than  ever  desire 
to  be  rid?  We  may  feel  that  our  intentions  are  of  the 
best,  but  have  we  a  right  to  demand  that  our  interpretation 
of  our  actions  be  accepted?  In  the  light  of  this  difficulty 
another  possibility  occurs  to  the  thinker,  a  possibility 
which  is  in  line  with  the  teaching  of  socialism.  Is  there  not 
another  kind  of  preparedness  which  we  may  add  to  our  battle- 
ships and  forts?  A  modern  war  rests  upon  the  whole 
nation.  If  that  is  healthy  and  well-organized,  if  it  has  stal- 
wart and  intelligent  citizens,  if  it  has  able  scientists  and 
wise  thinkers,  if  it  has  factories  and  railroads,  if  it  has 
the  high  patriotism  which  justice  brings,  if  it  has  the  re- 
sources of  a  continent  and  the  potential  strength  of  a  vast 
population,  it  need  fear  little.  No  country  will  go  far  out 
of  its  way  in  a  mere  spirit  of  perverseness  to  attack  it. 
Such,  the  socialist  feels^  should  be  America's  position. 


CHAPTER  XII 
CAN  WE  UNIVERSALIZE  DEMOCRACY? 

WE  have  endeavored  to  gain  a  clear  idea  of  those  ad- 
vances in  social,  economic  and  political  life  which  appeal  to 
the  kindly  and  intelligent  man  of  the  western  world  as 
both  desirable  and  feasible.  Cannot  justice  be  increased 
among  us  if  we  take  thought  and  be  no  longer  satisfied 
with  the  traditionary  methods  of  dealing  with  our  fellow 
men?  Cannot  freedom  become  less  formal  and  legal  and 
more  a  reality  for  the  mass  of  workers  if  the  spirit  of  co- 
operation be  allowed  to  permeate  and  mould  our  economic 
institutions?  Cannot  equality  pass  from  a  mere  phrase  to 
a  significant  reality  if  it  be  taken  to  mean  equality  of 
opportunity?  Such  questions  as  these  are  abroad  in  the 
land  and  the  sentiments  which  they  are  fostering  will 
gradually  find  expression  in  those  practical  reforms  and 
social  experiments  which  mark  the  onward  movement  of 
democracy, — for  democracy  is  a  movement  rather  than  a 
fixed  form  achieved  once  for  all. 

But  while  we  have  looked  upon  socialism  as  the  deepen- 
ing and  extension  of  that  civilization  which  the  western 
world  has  already  achieved  or,  to  speak  more  exactly, 
one  of  the  manifestations  of  the  massive  forces  in  human 
nature  which  are  pushing  human  values  to  the  fore;  and 
while  we  have  seen  no  obstacles  in  its  path  greater  than 
those  which  our  fathers  in  their  day  met  and  conquered, 
this  prophecy  of  evolution  may  have  appeared  to  the 
critical  reader  too  hopeful  in  its  estimation  of  men  and 
affairs.  Is  not  democracy  still  too  local  a  phenomenon 

246 


CAN  WE  UNIVERSALIZE  DEMOCRACY?       247 

for  us  to  be  justified  in  laying  much  stress  upon  it  in  our 
forecast  of  the  future?  Have  not  we  Americans  been  too 
prone  to  universalize  those  habits,  sentiments  and  in- 
stitutions which  we  identify  with  democracy  and  regard 
as  the  sole  form  suitable  to  a  progressive  and  self-respect- 
ing people?  And,  even  in  our  own  case,  have  we  not 
ignored  too  blandly  those  failures  and  shortcomings  which 
stand  out  to  the  critically-minded  in  our  municipal  and 
even  in  our  national  affairs?  And,  if  we  have  faith  in  our- 
selves and  in  our  capacity  to  develop  to  nobler  levels  of 
democracy,  are  we  not  one  among  many?  There  are 
other  races  and  other  climes.  There  are  Mexico,  seem- 
ingly unable  to  reach  a  stable  government  without  autoc- 
racy, the  swarming  masses  of  India  where  population 
constantly  presses  upon  the  means  of  subsistence,  the 
submerged  millions  of  China,  those  parts  of  the  Orient 
which  have  never  yet  achieved  anything  even  approaching 
a  political  democracy.  Must  we  not  search  our  hearts  add 
confront  our  traditional  optimism  with  the  brutal  facts  of 
life  as  it  is?  If  we  do  this,  can  we  universalize  democracy? 
A  few  decades  ago,  we  might  have  turned  our  backs 
contemptuously  on  such  a  query.  But  an  enlarged  ex- 
perience of  the  world  and  a  recognition  of  imperfections 
in  our  own  political  and  social  life  have  made  us  more 
humble  and  more  thoughtful.  We  are  beginning  to  realize 
that  democracy  has  been  more  a  faith  than  a  reality  and 
that,  like  any  great  religion,  it  has  refused  to  recognize 
any  boundaries.  For  democracy,  as  for  Christianity,  the 
cry  has  been:  "There  is  neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  circumci- 
sion nor  uncircumcision,  Barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor 
free."  This  tendency  of  a  movement  to  demand  univer- 
sality is  a  characteristic  of  comparatively  modern  times 
and  is  at  the  same  time  our  pride  and  our  discomfort. 


348  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

It  sets  an  ideal  which  urges  us  on  but  an  ideal  of  whose 
difficulty  we  are  increasingly  aware.  It  is  the  nature  and 
extent  of  the  obstacles  in  the  path  of  democracy  which  I 
wish  to  consider. 

For  both  democracy  and  religion  there  is  the  tempta- 
tion to  think  of  the  Kingdom  as  a  free  gift  for  which  people 
need  only  to  reach  out  their  hands.  Now  it  is  to  this  facile, 
unearned,  over-hasty  extension  of  democracy  that  the 
facts  of  We  are  giving  denial.  With  the  first  burst  of 
enthusiasm  over,  we  are  beginning  to  realize  that  democ- 
racy, like  character,  is  an  achievement  bought  by  slow 
and  painstaking  effort  and,  perhaps,  resting  on  a  biological 
as  well  as  a  social  heredity  of  virtues.  Have  all  races 
the  foundation  for  the  required  social  virtues?  Have  they 
the  intelligence,  the  self-control,  the  patience  and  the  per- 
sistence to  the  required  amount?  We  are  realizing,  in 
other  words,  that  democracy  has  its  conditions  and  we  are 
asking  ourselves  whether  these  conditions  can  always  and 
everywhere  be  fulfilled. 

The  traditional  American  impulse  to  extend  democracy 
to  other  lands  can  be  understood  only  in  the  light  of  Amer- 
can  history.  There  was  something  unique  and,  in  a  sense, 
unhistorical  in  the  origin  of  the  United  States.  Our  fore- 
fathers were  uprooted  from  the  soil  in  which  their  stock 
had  developed  to  a  high  social  level  and  were  transplanted 
to  a  virgin  continent  under  the  power  of  non-conforming 
ideas,  religious  and  political.  They  possessed  a  certain 
social  training  as  well  as  a  temperamental  capacity  for  po- 
litical action.  This  break  with  the  past  and  the  isolation 
which  ensued  effected  what  can  only  be  called  a  social  ex- 
periment on  a  very  large  scale.  The  consequence  was  an 
extreme  individualism  suffused  with  an  atmosphere  of 
religious  mysticism.  Added  to  this  was  a  certain  aloofness 


CAN  WE  UNIVERSALIZE  DEMOCRACY?       249 


from  the  ways  of  the  rest  of  the  world.  The 
of  a  pioneer  life,  the  absence  of  pomp  and  circumstance, 
the  essential  equality  characteristic  of  an  agricultural 
life,  all  these  factors  of  race  and  place  prepared  a  people 
ready  to  welcome  and  to  adopt  the  ideas  of  republic- 
anism and  democracy  which  were  beginning  to  seethe  in 
Europe  in  the  eighteenth  century  as  a  reaction  against 
feudalism.  Never  did  doctrines  find  a  more  fitting  soil. 
They  were  in  large  measure  the  translation  of  actual  con- 
ditions in  America  —  an  almost  homogeneous  stock  so  far 
as  the  Aryan  race  was  concerned,  agricultural  individual- 
ism, opportunity  for  all  in  the  shape  of  immense  tracts 
of  free  land.  Thus  the  individualism  of  American  condi- 
tions met  the  vague,  anti-feudal  formulas  of  the  French 
Revolution  and  adopted  them  in  full  faith  as  watchwords 
and  ideals.  "Liberty,  equality  and  fraternity,"  "All 
men  are  born  free  and  equal,"  "  Each  to  count  as  one," 
these  slogans  became  the  uncriticized  dogmas  of  a  creed 
which  was  more  emotional  than  reflective.  Americans 
seldom  asked  themselves  whether  there  were  any  qual- 
ifications to  be  attached  to  these  articles  of  their  demo- 
cratic faith.  And  the  reason  for  this  absence  of  conditions 
was  that  Americans  were  thinking  of  their  own  lives.  So 
far  as  they  thought  of  the  rest  of  the  world,  they  thought 
of  the  inhabitants  as  at  least  potential  Americans.  The 
difficulties  facing  a  democracy  could  not,  then,  be  very 
great.  Only  the  sceptically-inclined  doubted  for  a  mo- 
ment that  every  people  would  be  the  better  for  a  represent- 
ative form  of  government  with  an  elective  executive.  A 
congress  or  legislature  had  in  it  a  virtue  which  counter- 
acted ignorance,  ambition  and  greed.  Such  was  the  reflec- 
tion in  America  of  the  Age  of  Parliaments  to  which  Carlyle 
so  sarcastically  refers. 


250  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

All  this  was  noble  in  its  way,  but  was  it  not  very  naive? 
Did  it  not  rest  on  lack  of  knowledge  of  the  difficulties 
which  confront  a  complex  society?  Was  not  America  too 
optimistic  in  regard  to  its  own  achievements  and  too  little 
prone  to  reflect  on  its  own  shortcomings?  Let  us  com- 
pare the  changes  in  Europe  in  the  direction  of  democracy 
with  the  situation  in  America  in  order  to  get  a  better 
perspective.  In  this  way,  we  can  see  what  highly  organ- 
ized societies  have  in  common. 

During  the  nineteenth  century,  all  unbeknown  to  the 
majority  of  Americans,  what  deserves  to  be  called  democ- 
racy increased  in  Europe  and  identified  itself  with  very 
radical  demands  on  the  economic  side  of  life.  Social  evils 
were  met  and  controlled  which  were  allowed  in  this  conti- 
nent to  flourish  unchecked.  And  this  radical  movement 
had  a  threefold  root  in  a  more  positive  view  of  the  func- 
tions of  the  government,  a  more  intelligent  study  of  social 
conditions  and  the  rise  of  an  international  labor  move- 
ment. While  we  had  continued  to  lay  stress  upon  the 
formal  contrasts — important  enough,  no  doubt,  in  their 
way — between  republicanism  and  monarchy  as  types  of 
government,  European  thinkers  and  publicists  had  learned 
to  realize  that  democracy  is  more  than  an  affair  of  govern- 
ment. Formal  classifications  in  terms  of  government  are 
not  taken  to  be  as  fundamental  as  was  supposed  when  the 
actual  struggle  was  against  feudal  autocracy.  Thus  the 
emphases  and  watchwords  of  one  generation  are  not  those 
of  the  next  because  the  concrete  problems  have  shifted. 

What,  then,  is  the  exact  nature  of  this  democracy  which 
we  tend  to  universalize  and  to  regard  as  the  end-term  of 
social  development?  In  a  very  interesting  chapter  on 
"The  Destinies  of  Democracy,"  Professor  Franklin  Gid- 
dings  points  out  the  difficulty  in  giving  a  "true  account 


CAN  WE  UNIVERSALIZE  DEMOCRACY?       251 

of  the  involved  relations  of  liberty  and  democracy — the 
most  complex,  the  most  momentous,  the  most  fascinating, 
and  the  most  baffling  products  of  social  evolution."  "  True 
conceptions  of  liberty,"  he  writes,  "  are  to  be  found  only  in 
writings  on  constitutional  law." *  Since  we  must  have  a 
clear  conception  of  the  general  character  of  democracy  in 
order  to  make  the  question  we  have  asked  ourselves  a 
definite  one,  let  us  glance  at  the  distinctions  which  Profes- 
sor Giddings  draws.  "  Scientifically,  democracy  must  be 
defined  as  a  form  of  government,  or  as  a  form  of  the  State, 
or  as  a  form  of  society,  or  as  a  combination  of  the  three.  As 
a  form  of  government,  democracy  consists  in  the  actual  ad- 
ministration of  political  affairs  through  universal  suffrage. 
Democracy  as  a  form  of  government  cannot  co-exist  with 
representative  institutions;  it  admits  executive  and  judicial 
offices  only  of  the  most  restricted  ministerial  type;  it 
demands  the  decision  of  every  question  of  legal  and  execu- 
tive detail,  no  less  than  of  every  fundamental  principle 
of  right  and  of  policy,  by  a  direct  popular  vote.  Democ- 
racy as  a  form  of  the  State  is  popular  sovereignty,  that 
is,  a  popular  distribution  of  formal  political  power.  It 
signifies  the  right  of  the  masses  of  the  people  to  partici- 
pate in  the  creation  of  the  government  or  machinery  of 
administration.  Democracy  as  a  form  of  society  is  not  so 
often  or  quite  so  easily  discriminated.  It  is  a  democratic 
organization  and  control  of  the  non-political  forms  of 
association.  It  is  also  something  besides.  In  a  perfectly 
democratic  society  the  masses  would  possess  that  indef- 
inite, unformed,  but  actual  political  power  which  lies  back 
of  the  formal  power  that  registers  its  decisions  through 
the  act  of  voting.  In  Professor  Burgess's  nomenclature, 
democracy  as  a  form  of  society  is  popular  sovereignty 

1  "Democracy  and  Empire,"  p.  200. 


252  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

behind  the  constitution,  as  distinguished  from  popular 
sovereignty  in  the  constitution."  1 

This  analysis  helps  us  to  realize  the  connection  between 
socialism  and  democracy.  While  working  for  popular 
sovereignty,  socialism  always  has  in  mind  those  broad 
human  values  to  which  it  regards  such  sovereignty  as  a 
means.  A  people  who  achieved  this  formal  democracy 
and  allowed  unjustified  privileges  to  exist  would  be  an 
ethically  undeveloped  people,  a  people  whose  development 
was,  perhaps,  legal  and  onesided  and  who  were  not  con- 
scious of  the  larger  issues  of  life. 

Now  the  point  which  Americans  are  beginning  to  realize 
is  that  this  larger  reflection  may  have  developed  farther 
among  peoples  who  have  achieved  less  than  we  have — 
thanks  to  our  history — of  popular  sovereignty.  We  are 
also  beginning  to  realize  that  constitutional  monarchies 
may  be  as  democratic  in  many  essentials  as  countries  in 
which  the  executive  is  directly  elected  by  the  whole  people. 
The  difference  is  one  of  system,  of  form,  rather  than  of  con- 
trol. When  one  realizes  this  fact,  one  is  less  inclined  to  lay 
stress  upon  the  necessity  for  the  spread  of  the  American 
system  as  against  the  responsible  cabinet  scheme  so  gen- 
eral in  Europe.  The  socialist  is  not  so  much  interested  in 
an  ardent  propaganda  for  republicanism  as  in  the  spread 
of  democracy  to  society  and  the  increasing  recognition  of 
human  values.  He  feels,  however,  that  if  such  a  society 
is  to  have  a  firm  basis  it  must  rest  on  constitutionalism, 
on  an  achieved  order,  and  on  a  social  recognition  of  rights 
and  duties.  And  it  is  by  no  means  easy  to  achieve  all  this. 
It  is  an  .evolution  whose  conditions  are  complex  and,  up 
to  the  present,  not  realized  the  world  over.  The  United 
States,  itself,  has  still  some  distance  to  go  on  this  road. 
1  "  Democracy  and  Empire,"  p.  203. 


CAN  WE  UNIVERSALIZE  DEMOCRACY?       258 

When  we  look  at  democracy  in  this  way  as  a  level  which 
is  slowly  attained,  we  realize  that  it  cannot  be  adopted  as 
a  sort  of  fashion.  It  is  a  growth,  not  a  garment. 

The  attempt  to  extend  such  a  democracy  has  problems 
to  face  which  can  be  understood  and  weighed  only  in  the 
light  of  a  genuine  knowledge  of  the  world  as  it  is.  Both 
democracy  and  socialism  have  been  over-inclined  to  sen- 
timent, perhaps  even  to  sentimentalism.  Democracy 
must  be  loyal  to  its  values  and  incapable  of  discourage- 
ment but  it  need  not  be  blind.  To  hug  ignorance  and  to 
ignore  difficulties  is  the  surest  path  to  disillusionment. 
What  democracy  needs  is  flexibility,  sanity,  knowledge 
and  a  high  purpose.  Possessed  of  these  virtues,  it  will 
have  patience  and  modesty,  and  be  willing  to  creep  where 
it  cannot  walk  and  walk  where  it  cannot  run. 

Let  us  glance  at  some  of  the  factors  which  make  the 
present  generation  unable  to  expect  a  hasty  extension  to 
backward  countries  of  a  particular  type  of  democracy. 
Without  attempting  to  be  exhaustive,  we  can  name  the 
following:  (1)  the  exploration  of  the  world;  (2)  the  teaching 
of  Darwinism;  (3)  a  better  understanding  of  social  psy- 
chology; (4)  the  friction  between  races;  (5)  an  historical 
approach  to  institutions;  (6)  the  failures  which  have  over- 
taken the  republican  form  of  government  in  countries  be- 
low our  own  level  of  development;  (7)  the  lack  of  complete 
success  where  conditions  have  been  the  most  favorable, 
as  in  the  United  States.  A  study  of  these  factors  will  give 
us  a  more  adequate  perspective  in  which  to  forecast  the 
evolution  and  spread  of  democracy  in  the  world.  It  will 
give  the  ardent  idealist  a  quieting  sense  that  these  things 
belong  to  nature  and  that  they  cannot  be  over-hastened. 

In  that  wise  little  book,  "The  Relations  of  the  Advanced 
and  the  Backward  Races  of  Mankind,"  James  Bryce 


254  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

points  out  that  the  last  century  witnessed  the  completion 
of  one  great  task  which  man  had  to  do.  "Scientific  knowl- 
edge will,  we  may  hope,  go  on  increasing  steadily  and 
rapidly.  But  the  exploration  of  this  earth  is  now  all  but 
finished.  Civilized  man  knows  his  home  in  a  sense  in 
which  he  never  knew  it  before.  He  knows  how  high  are 
the  mountains  and  how  deep  the  seas,  what  are  the  cur- 
rents that  keep  the  ocean  in  salutary  unrest,  and  what  the 
winds  which  bring  rain  or  heat.  .  .  .  Moreover  he  knows 
the  inhabitants  of  the  earth,  and  not  only  the  Races  as 
they  are,  but  the  conditions  which  have  determined  the 
progress  of  each  in  the  past  and  may  affect  them  in  the  fu- 
ture, their  natural  aptitudes,  their  habits  of  industry  or 
indolence,  the  features  of  the  land  wherein  each  dwells, 
and  the  influence  of  those  features  upon  the  increase  or 
decay  of  population,  upon  the  forms  which  industrial  ef- 
fort takes."  There  results  from  this  increased  knowledge, 
he  maintains,  a  possibility  of  prophesying  the  relative  de- 
velopment of  the  various  branches  of  mankind  and  the 
character  of  their  relations.  Questions  of  race-capacity 
arise,  of  the  probability  of  miscegenation,  of  the  acclima- 
tion of  the  white  races  for  life  in  the  tropics,  of  the  na- 
ture of  the  bonds  which  will  hold  between  the  more  back- 
ward and  the  more  progressive  countries. 

When  the  world-situation  is  approached  in  this  concrete 
way,  we  can  better  grasp  those  larger  problems  of  place 
and  control  which  confront  the  claim  of  democracy  to 
universalization.  It  is  said  that  castes  within  the  bound- 
aries of  a  country  hinder  the  industrial  and  ethical  develop- 
ment of  both  the  well-born  and  the  ignoble :  Will  the  exist- 
ence of  these  different  human  strata  in  the  world  at  large 
have  a  similar  effect?  Must  all  be  redeemed  before  democ- 
racy can  advance  much  farther?  Or  can  different  levels 


CAN  WE  UNIVERSALIZE  DEMOCRACY?       255 

of  human  achievement  exist  in  partial  independence  of  each 
other?  Such  are  some  of  the  questions  which  this  explora- 
tion of  the  world  has  brought  in  its  wake.  The  world  is 
one  in  a  way  that  it  has  never  been  before,  yet  the  world  is 
also  many  in  a  way  that  it  has  never  been  before.  It  is 
this  divergence  in  unity  which  the  political  thought  of 
democracy  must  face. 

The  teaching  of  Darwinism  with  its  stress  on  the  selec- 
tive power  of  the  environment  laid  the  foundation  for  a 
more  realistic  view  of  society.  Biology  may  be  said  to  have 
entered  the  purview  of  political  science  for  the  first  time. 
The  eighteenth  century  had  ignored  racial  differences 
and  had  abstracted  lightly  from  factors  which  may  be 
capital  for  the  future  tone  of  civilization.  While  we  must 
not  kotow  to  race  and  color,  it  would  be  equally  foolish  to 
disregard  them  or  to  act  the  coward  in  regard  to  them. 
Above  all,  the  growth  of  the  biological  sciences  has  brought 
to  view  the  idea  of  evolution  and  this  idea  means  continuity 
and  time.  We  no  longer  look  forward  to  a  miracle  of  sud- 
den change  in  which  peoples  will  be  exalted  and  show 
capacities  for  wise  self-government  of  which  their  previous 
conduct  had  given  us  no  suspicion.  It  is  seen  that  peoples 
live  in  the  midst  of  an  atmosphere  of  customs,  habits  and 
institutions  which  are  as  much  to  be  reckoned  with  as 
their  reason  or  their  native  capacity.  There  is  an  inertia 
or  ponderousness  about  large  groups  which  is  the  despair 
of  the  sentimental  rationalist.  They  are  a  part  of  organic 
life  and  must  grow  by  assimilation.  They  are  like  those 
huge  monsters  which  scientists  have  unearthed  in  the  marl 
of  Wyoming  and  Texas;  ideas  spread  slowly  to  their  ex- 
tremities. And  this  change  of  outlook  which  exploration 
and  Darwinism  have  finally  produced  has  modified  and 
must  continue  to  modify  the  old  internationalism  which 


256  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

sprang  up  in  the  century  of  European  revolution.  The 
socialist  must  remember  that,  while  he  tried  to  be  real- 
istic, Marx  formed  his  ideas  before  the  modern  view  of 
evolution  had  been  fully  developed.  It  is  not  to  be  won- 
dered at,  then,  that  his  brand  of  internationalism — not  to 
speak  of  that  of  Bakunin — had  in  it  much  of  the  ideology 
of  the  age  of  Rousseau.  The  coming  internationalism 
must  be  a  growth  resting  on  nationalism. 

The  study  of  folk-lore,  of  the  history  of  political  institu- 
tions, of  the  rise  and  spread  of  moral  ideals  has  given  us  a 
fuller  insight  into  the  way  in  which  man  progresses  when 
he  does  progress.  We  understand  better  the  tendencies 
to  conservatism  and  to  localism  present  in  any  society 
and  no  longer  trust  so  much  to  eloquent  demonstrations 
and  general  appeals.  History  has  shown  that  culture- 
contacts  usually  have  the  element  of  pressure  in  them, 
that  ideals  struggle  among  one  another  for  supremacy 
and  that  this  supremacy  is  due  to  workableness  in  the  actual 
conditions  of  time  and  place.  To-day,  philosophers  assert 
that  there  is  a  struggle  for  survival  among  institutions 
which  is  quite  comparable  to  that  which,  according  to  the 
biologist,  occurs  among  animals.  Has  democracy  this 
power  to  oust  other  forms  of  organization  and  is  it  capable 
of  adapting  itself  to  the  most  varied  conditions?  Those 
who  believe  in  democracy — and  I  am  most  certainly  one 
of  them — are  convinced  that  it  expresses  what  man  has 
it  in  him  to  be  and  what  he  dimly  desires  to  be  as  soon 
as  he  attains  a  definite  self-consciousness  and  a  distinct 
individuality.  If  so,  it  is  the  goal  which  human  nature 
itself  sets;  but  human  nature  in  this  sense  is  too  often 
only  a  potentiality  not  an  actuality.  Therefore  the  goal 
cannot  be  reached  by  a  coup  d'etat  or  by  magic  words. 
There  is  no  royal  road  to  democracy — to  use  an  Irish 


CAN  WE  UNIVERSALIZE  DEMOCRACY?       257 

bull — any  more  than  there  is  to  culture  or  to  achievement 
of  any  kind. 

Again,  the  friction  between  races,  especially  when  these 
dwell  within  the  same  country  or  the  same  empire,  has 
given  ground  for  pessimism  in  regard  to  the  extension  of  a 
genuine  democracy.  Does  not  democracy  mean  citizen- 
ship? And  how  can  there  be  loyal  citizenship  when  there 
are  hatred  and  misunderstanding  between  classes  of  citi- 
zens ?  A  certain  homogeneity,  a  certain  feeling  of  fraternity 
would  seem  to  be  a  condition  of  the  harmonious  working  of 
democracy.  There  must  be  present  a  likemindedness,  an 
almost  intuitive  understanding  of  and  sympathy  with  the 
larger  trend  of  public  affairs.  Will  not  differences  of  race, 
when  combined  with  hostile  memories,  furnish  the  breed- 
ing-place for  antagonisms  which  will  introduce  an  element 
of  strain  in  both  national  and  international  relations? 
Will  a  social  atmosphere  of  justice  and  kindliness  kill 
these  noxious  germs? 

The  failure  of  paper  democracies  in  other  countries  has 
likewise  given  the  enthusiast  pause.  Those  governments 
which  swing  between  anarchy,  on  the  one  hand,  and  mil- 
itary dictatorship,  on  the  other,  have  made  the  citizens 
of  more  stable  nations  aware  that  government  is  the  ex- 
pression of  a  society  and  that,  if  the  inhabitants  of  a  coun- 
try have  not  those  psychical  qualifications  which  we  call 
discipline,  initiative  and  intelligence,  they  are  as  yet  unfit 
to  act  as  full  citizens.  They  have  need  for  a  more  con- 
tinuous source  of  authority  until  a  middle  class  arises 
which  is  capable  of  giving  balance  to  the  government.  I 
say  middle  class,  not  because  I  think  that  this  class  nec- 
essarily has  large  social  virtues  of  a  democratic  sort,  but 
because  it  always  furnishes  that  stability  and  continuity 
which  is  one  of  the  essential  conditions  of  further  progress. 


258  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

The  conclusions  drawn  by  Dr.  Goodnow,  formerly  Ameri- 
can advisor  at  Pekin  and  now  President  of  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  from  his  experience  in  China  is  interesting  in 
this  connection  because  it  expresses  that  undoctrinaire, 
realistic  view  of  government  which  is  displacing  the  earlier 
American  impulse  to  universalize  the  political  system  of 
the  United  States  without  regard  to  circumstances.  "To 
such  a  population,  it  would  be,  to  put  it  in  the  mildest 
possible  form,  perilously  unsettling  to  hold  elections  every 
so  often.  Too  much  chance  by  far  would  thus  be  given 
the  political  groups,  already  formed  and  distinctly  active 
with  a  shrewdness  and  'practical'  skill  more  than  a  little 
reflective  of  western  methods.  The  salvation  of  China 
lies  in  the  gradual  bringing  into  her  public  services  of  more 
and  more  of  the  abler,  less  self-seeking  men  and  this  can 
be  better  obtained  under  a  monarchy  of  constitutional 
limitations  than  under  republicanism  as  it  would  there  be 
put  into  practice."  There  is  undoubtedly  danger  in  the 
constantly  recurring  election  of  the  chief  executive.  The 
United  States  is  a  brilliant  exception  to  this  rule  but,  after 
all,  an  exception  which  can  be  accounted  for  only  histor- 
ically. 

Now  the  progress  achieved  by  some  nations  has  seemed 
to  the  superficial  observer  to  be  of  the  slightest.  Revolu- 
tion has  followed  revolution  as  one  season  follows  another 
with  little  perceptible  growth  in  that  civic  consciousness 
which  is  the  foundation  of  true  patriotism  and  the  greatest 
enemy  of  faction.  It  was  such  display  of  factionism  near 
us  in  Central  America,  Mexico  and  Venezuela  and  farther 
off  in  Portugal,  Turkey  and  Persia  which  helped  to  weaken 
our  inherited  impulse  to  regard  all  countries  as  potential 
republics.  We  are  realizing  that  there  are  different  levels 
of  potentiality  and  that  time  is  indeed  an  important  factor. 


CAN  WE  UNIVERSALIZE  DEMOCRACY?       259 

The  student  who  wishes  to  be  impartial  does  not  always 
know  what  and  whom  to  blame  for  these,  at  least  relative, 
failures.  If  he  is  critical,  he  is  inclined  to  be  sceptical  of  a 
mere  appeal  to  race,  for  race  is  often  a  blanket-term  to 
cover  our  ignorance  of  economic  and  social  conditions 
which  are  historically  grounded.  The  daring  thinker, 
therefore,  suggests  that  there  is  more  hope  in  such  unrest 
than  in  the  old  lethargy.  The  ice  of  static  custom  is 
breaking  under  the  swell  of  world-wide  forces  to  whose 
influence  we  can  as  yet  set  no  boundaries.  But  the  con- 
servative thinker,  the  thinker  with  a  leaning  toward 
authority  and  a  belief  in  control  from  above  down,  with, 
perhaps,  a  more  confirmed  race  pride,  has  begun  to  ask 
himself  whether  progress  of  a  genuine  and  extensive  sort 
is  possible  for  all  races  and  climes  or  whether  many  nations 
may  not  have  reached  an  almost  predestined  level  beyond 
which  they  cannot  rise  any  more  than  water  can  rise  higher 
than  its  source.  Are  there  aristocrats  among  the  nations 
born  to  rule  and  to  win  the  rewards  of  rule?  Such  is  the 
divided  attitude  which  makes  the  extension  of  democracy 
a  problem. 

And,  lastly,  in  our  own  country  there  has  arisen  a  more 
adequate  understanding  of  the  difficulty  of  achieving  a 
really  efficient  government  when  government  is  under  the 
control  of  a  jealous  citizenry  stressing  rights  rather  than 
duties.  The  functions  of  government  had,  under  our 
traditionary  theory,  been  reduced  to  a  minimum.  Society 
was  looked  upon  as  a  collection  of  individuals  each  pretty 
capable  of  looking  after  himself.  This  atomistic  view 
was  natural  to  an  agricultural  people  who  wished  only  to 
be  allowed  to  lead  their  own  lives  in  their  own  little  circles, 
and  had  no  idea  of  team-work  nor  desire  to  achieve  some 
common  end.  To  protect  life  and  property,  to  see  to  the 


260  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

enforcement  of  contracts,  to  look  after  those  foreign  rela- 
tions which  remained  even  after  all  entangling  alliances 
were  eschewed,  these  were  the  duties  of  the  government. 
No  thought  was  paid  to  the  inevitable  and  constant  con- 
trol exerted  by  social  institutions  like  those  of  property 
and  inheritance.  We  believed  that  society  offered  no 
serious  problems  so  long  as  the  component  individuals 
had  certain  personal  virtues.  The  socialist  often  finds 
himself  wondering  how  this  blindness  to  problems  was 
possible. 

But  even  on  the  political  side,  the  American  Republic 
has  had  its  flaws.  Blind  partisanship,  corruption  at  the 
polls,  the  spoils  system,  boss  rule,  selection  of  demagogues 
as  leaders,  the  admiration  for  superficial  cleverness,  all 
these  features  have  lessened  that  uncritical  admiration 
for  popular  government  with  which  we  started.  While 
we  have  no  thought  of  drawing  back,  we  cannot  deny  that 
we  are  disappointed.  We  are  realizing  that  popular  gov- 
ernment is  literally  an  expression  of  the  people  as  they  are 
and  that  there  is  room  for  improvement.  Reformers  are, 
therefore,  attempting  two  things:  first,  to  make  the  polit- 
ical system  as  free  from  the  evils  of  professionalism  of  a 
monetary  sort  as  it  can  be  made;  second,  to  turn  to  the 
spread  of  education  and  publicity  as  the  ultimate  hope 
of  democracy.  Americans  know  now  as  they  never  knew 
before  that  an  efficient  and  just  democracy  is  a  very  diffi- 
cult thing  to  carry  through.  They  have  as  strong  faith  as 
they  ever  had  in  the  ultimate  outcome  but  they  are  more 
aware  that  there  are  conditions  which  must  be  fulfilled. 

We  have  decided  that  there  are  certain  psychical  condi- 
tions without  which  the  higher  levels  of  democracy  are 
impossible  and  that  these  conditions  are  not  necessarily 
dependent  upon  the  possession  of  any  stereotyped  form  of 


CAN  WE  UNIVERSALIZE  DEMOCRACY?       261 

government,  that  there  must  be  a  social  development  in- 
volving education,  discipline  and  the  growth  of  both  per- 
sonal and  social  virtues  before  a  people  are  able  to  govern 
themselves  very  successfully,  that  democracy  is  an  achieve- 
ment and  not  a  gift.  The  impatient  reformer  who  wishes 
a  perfect  society  to  arise  as  if  by  magic  may  be  disheartened 
at  such  a  conclusion,  but  he  who  possesses  the  historical 
point  of  view  and  is  aware  of  what  has  been  accomplished 
during  the  last  two  centuries  sees  no  reason  to  be  dis- 
couraged— quite  the  contrary  in  fact. 

If  democracy  is  to  spread,  how  can  this  extension  best 
be  brought  about?  Have  we,  moreover,  a  fairly  well 
grounded  assurance  that  the  conditions  of  democracy  can 
be  achieved  in  countries  where  it  would  seem  to  have 
hardly  a  foothold  as  yet?  Having  taken  a  philosophical 
view  of  the  situation,  what  can  we  say  to  give  a  just  hope 
to  the  lover  of  democracy? 

That  there  is  a  backwash  to  conservatism  and  to  an 
emphasis  on  race  at  the  present  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
So  impressed  have  some  thinkers  been  by  the  realistic 
factors  to  which  we  have  called  attention  that  they  are 
inclined  to  adopt  as  their  motto,  "Sufficient  to  a  people 
is  its  government  and  social  order  since  these  are  expres- 
sions of  its  life."  But  the  fault  with  this  interpretation  is 
its  neglect  of  the  new  influences  which  are  at  work  in  the 
world.  It  is  so  easy,  as  I  pointed  out  once  before,  to  in- 
terpret social  conditions  in  terms  of  race.  But  is  such  an 
attitude  really  scientific?  Race  may  be  a  factor  but  it  is 
not  the  only  factor.  Anthropologists  tell  us,  moreover, 
that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  pure  race.  The  Russians 
have  many  racial  strains  in  their  blood  and  are  by  no  means 
pure  Slavic.  The  Bulgar  is  part  Slavic  and  part  brother  to 
the  Hungarian  and  Turk.  The  Japanese  are  decidedly  a 


262  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

mixture  of  Mongolian  and  Malay  with,  perhaps,  a  slight 
strain  of  Aryan.  Many  of  the  nations  which  are  now  back- 
ward played  a  spectacular  role  in  history  generations  ago. 
The  scientist  has  to  go  beyond  race  to  geographical,  cli- 
matic and  economic  factors  if  he  wishes  to  understand 
somewhat  better  the  causes  of  conditions  as  they  are. 
What  the  biologist  calls  the  principle  of  isolation  has  been 
very  important.  Isolated  peoples  have  missed  those 
culture-contacts  which  were  forced  upon  European  peoples 
by  the  very  lay  of  the  land.  Who  that  has  read  Greek  his- 
tory has  not  had  it  pointed  out  to  him  that  the  nature  of 
the  country  and  its  Mediterranean  position  had  much  to 
do  with  its  achievements?  Egypt,  Phoenicia,  Syria  and 
Persia  in  turn  stimulated  them  and  forced  on  them  a 
larger  world  and  a  larger  life.  Let  us  see  whether  we  have 
in  this  fact  a  suggestion  of  what  is  now  taking  place  over 
the  whole  world  and  will  continue  to  take  place  increas- 
ingly. 

We  have  said  that  the  world  is  one  to-day  in  a  way  that 
it  has  never  been  before.  There  are  convection  currents 
between  nations  which  convey  ideas,  methods  and  in- 
stitutions from  one  shore  to  another.  It  is  to  the  steady, 
persistent,  almost  automatic  working  of  this  agency  that 
democracy  must  trust.  Only  he  who  has  failed  to  give 
the  situation  thought  can  be  ignorant  of  the  tremendous 
reach  and  the  continuous,  unremitting  pressure  of  peoples 
upon  one  another  now  that  the  world  has  been  explored 
and  its  most  distant  parts  linked  together  by  railroads  and 
steamship  lines.  The  old  isolation  which  permitted  the 
hardening  of  society  into  an  almost  permanent  mould  has 
gone  forever.  The  old  internal  adaptations  and  traditional 
ideas  and  customs  have  lost  their  adequacy,  and  with  it 
their  power,  with  this  enforced  widening  of  the  horizon. 


CAN  WE  UNIVERSALIZE  DEMOCRACY?       263 

The  psychological  change  which  comes  over  the  hermit 
nation  when  the  world  is  brought  to  its  doors  is  com- 
parable to  the  change  in  the  mentality  of  an  European 
peasant  when  he  comes  to  the  city.  Whatever  breaks 
down  national  barriers  and  habits  prevents  isolation  and 
quickens  the  social  pulse. 

But  can  we  be  certain  that  this  industrial  union  of  the  / 
world  which  commerce  is  bringing  to  pass  will  necessarily 
work  toward  the  spread  of  a  genuine  civilization  instead 
of  toward  a  monotonous  external  uniformity?  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  it  causes  the  disappearance  of  peasant 
costumes  and  the  adoption  of  common  modes  of  life.  The 
locomotive  and  the  huge  ocean  liner  no  longer  astonish 
the  natives  of  China  and  even  the  Eskimo  is  becoming 
familiar  with  rifle  and  auto-sledge.  Cotton  mills  have 
their  thousands  of  operatives  in  Bombay,  Canton  and 
Yokohama.  A  different  kind  of  internationalism  than 
that  of  which  the  eighteenth  century  dreamed  is  upon  us, 
an  internationalism  of  commerce  and  industry.  What 
level  will  this  extension  of  commercial  relations  bring  in 
its  wake? 

In  spite  of  the  evils  connected  with  its  misuse,  machin- 
ery is  more  stimulating  to  the  mind  than  hoe  and  hand- 
loom.  It  arouses  curiosity  as  something  new;  it  breaks 
down  the  old  reverence  for  the  past;  it  induces  a  new 
attitude  toward  nature  and  human  affairs.  Thus  the 
machine  is  becoming  the  symbol  of  the  new  phase  of 
society.  Everywhere  the  horizon  is  being  pushed  back 
and  a  larger  range  of  interests  is  being  opened  up  to  the 
mind's  eye.  I  imagine  that  very  few  are  able  to  appreciate 
the  tremendous  psychological  effect  this  world-contact  is 
having.  The  phonograph,  it  is  said,  has  already  become  a 
religious  issue  in  the  Mohammedan  world.  If  the  Persian 


264  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

wars  made  the  Athens  of  Pericles  possible,  if  the  Crusades 
by  bringing  Near  East  and  West  together  gave  birth  to 
the  revival  of  learning,  what  must  be  the  ultimate  effect 
of  this  final  and  more  permeative  union?  This  much  we 
can  say:  social  life  all  over  the  world  will  be  quickened, 
individuals  will  live  larger,  more  self-conscious  lives.  The 
Hindoo  who  has  travelled  to  the  Transvaal  is  sensibly 
different  from  the  Hindoo  who  has  remained  at  home. 
He  takes  on  new  associations  and  attitudes  with  the  change 
in  the  soil  on  which  he  travels.  He  who  never  before  went 
on  a  strike  will  organize  with  his  fellows  and  commit 
sabotage  against  his  capitalistic  oppressors. 

But  other  forces  than  those  of  commerce  and  industry 
must  be  at  work  if  democracy  is  to  advance.  There  might 
not  be  much  of  a  net  gain  if  all  that  was  accomplished  by 
these  agencies  was  the  disruption  of  charming  and  evil 
customs  alike.  If  the  onward  march  of  western  modes  of 
life  brought  only  a  dreary  uniformity  in  the  place  of  that 
local  vividness  and  color  which  delight  the  eye  of  the 
traveller,  the  thinker  as  well  as  the  artist  would  simply 
shrug  his  shoulders  and  ask,  To  what  good  ?  If  Leopoldian- 
ism,  the  outrages  of  St.  Thome  and  Putumayo,  and  the 
horrors  of  the  march  to  Pekin  were  the  influences  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  backward  races,  it  were  better  for  them 
not  to  have  been  discovered.  There  is  assuredly  much 
that  is  brutal  in  this  meeting  of  races.  The  contact  was  too 
sudden  and  too  uncontrolled.  The  worst  in  the  white  man 
was  brought  to  the  front,  rather  than  the  better.  The 
gross  exploitation  of  the  masses  which  was  usual  in  Europe 
and  America  broke  over  the  natives  of  other  countries 
with  hardly  a  restraint. 

During  the  nineteenth  century,  there  swept  over  the 
uncivilized  world  the  fierce  tide  of  colonial  enterprise. 


CAN  WE  UNIVERSALIZE  DEMOCRACY?       265 

Each  great  European  nation  became  desirous  of  pre- 
empting some  portion  of  the  earth's  surface  in  Africa  or 
Oceania  or  Asia.  England  set  the  pace  by  turning  immense 
areas  of  the  map  into  red.  Soon  France  followed.  Then 
came  Germany  and  Italy  fast  on  their  heels  while  Russia 
absorbed  more  and  more  of  central  Asia.  In  this  way, 
an  administrative  relation  was  added  to  the  commercial 
relation.  I  am  strongly  inclined  to  think  that  this  was  a 
good  thing  so  far  as  it  involved  a  sense  of  responsibility 
for  the  condition  of  the  people  controlled.  We  can,  of 
course,  never  be  certain  what  the  history  of  these  regions 
would  have  been  had  they  not  been  absorbed  by  the  great 
powers.  Would  there  have  been  a  natural  evolution  or 
internal  anarchy?  Colonial  enterprises  have  at  least  ex- 
cluded anarchy.  Much  of  the  world  is,  then,  in  tutelage  to 
Europe. 

There  are  many  black  pages  in  this  extension  of  the 
dominion  of  the  western  State.  But  England  and  France 
have  voluntarily  crushed  out  slavery  and  seem  inclined 
to  foster  native  industries  and  native  self-respect.  Many 
keen  thinkers  who  are  familiar  with  conditions  in  tropical 
Africa  feel  that  the  great  question  of  policy  is  whether 
assistance  and  encouragement  will  be  given  to  the  develop- 
ment of  their  country  by  the  natives  themselves  or  whether 
capitalists  will  be  assisted  in  their  desire  to  exploit  the 
resources  by  hired  or  forced  labor.  Such  moral  questions 
confront  the  democratically-inclined  empires  in  whose' 
hands  are  the  destinies  of  vast  territories.  It  is  in  this 
way  that  the  growing  democracy  of  the  advanced  coun- 
tries can  cherish  the  peoples  who  are  not  yet  ready  for 
complete  self-government.  Let  us  hope  that  these  dem- 
ocratic empires  will  be  increasingly  conscious  of  their 
responsibility.  The  dangers  are  twofold:  the  monopolist, 


266  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

the  exploiter,  is  always  at  hand  and  his  influence  in  our 
plutocratic  democracies  is  very  great;  again,  the  ideal  of 
order  may  supplant  the  ideal  of  self-government.  The 
civil  servant  wants  good  government  and  feels  that  he 
can  bring  it  about.  He  is,  therefore,  apt  to  be  impatient 
with  those  feeble  efforts  of  native  populations  toward 
self-government  which  mean  so  much  to  them  in  terms  of 
growing  self-respect.  As  the  spirit  of  a  true  democracy 
grows  in  Europe  and  America  it  will  express  itself  toward 
colonies  and  dependencies  in  an  increase  of  responsibility, 
a  wider  publicity  for  over-seas  affairs  and  a  desire  to 
assist  local  control.  Such  will  be  the  atmosphere  of  the 
future  and  it  will  be  within  this  larger,  almost  international 
setting  that  backward  races  will  take  their  lessons  in  self- 
government.  Responsibility  will  be  given  as  it  is  deserved; 
let  us  hope  that  it  will  be  given  even  a  little  faster  than 
it  is  deserved. 

How  fast  will  this  process  of  achieving  successful  popular 
government  proceed?  Perhaps  not  so  very  fast  as  in- 
dividuals measure  time.  But  so  long  as  the  process  is 
uninterrupted,  there  is  room  for  a  quiet  optimism.  It  is 
the  beginning  which  is  most  heartbreaking.  It  is  so  hard 
to  get  things  started.  After  that,  they  march  of  them- 
selves so  long  as  there  is  a  firm  general  control.  Yet  we 
must  admit  that  this  movement  which  is  beginning  is  more 
or  less  of  an  experiment.  Time  alone  will  tell  how  much 
capacity  other  races  have  for  civilization  of  a  complex 
type.  All  races  seem  to  be  able  to  produce  exceptional 
leaders  now  and  then  but  it  remains  to  be  seen  how  high 
the  general  level  of  capacity  will  be.  The  white  race  must 
be  somewhat  lenient  in  its  judgments  where  huge  masses 
are  concerned,  as  in  India,  China  and  Japan,  because 
thickly  populated  countries  in  which  poverty  is  wide- 


CAN  WE  UNIVERSALIZE  DEMOCRACY?       267 

spread  naturally  lack  that  flexibility  which  is  America's 
pride.  The  hope  of  such  nations  is  in  the  rise  of  educated 
leadership.  Popular  sovereignty  in  accordance  with  the 
American  system  will  for  a  long  period  be  impossible  for 
them.  On  this  point  Dr.  Goodnow  is  undoubtedly  right. 

Assuredly  two  of  the  problems  which  confront  a  world- 
wide democracy  most  pressingly  are  race-friction  and 
differences  in  standard  of  living.  Two  striking  instances 
of  the  first  conflict  are  the  separateness  of  Englishman 
and  Hindoo  and  the  antagonism  between  white  men  and 
negroes  in  the  United  States.  As  an  instance  of  the  second 
conflict  we  can  take  the  exclusion  of  the  Chinese  from  our 
country.  Let  us  look  briefly  at  these  two  problems. 

"To  the  colonial  a  year  ago,"  writes  a  correspondent 
investigating  conditions  in  India  since  the  outbreak  of 
the  war,  "the  Indian  was  simply  a  'nigger'  who  wished 
to  overrun  the  dominions  and  bring  down  the  standard 
of  living.  To  the  Indian  the  colonial  was  a  white  dog  in 
the  manger  whose  selfish  policy  of  exclusion  made  a  mock- 
ery of  the  Indian's  much  advertised  British  citizenship." 
Race  antagonism  combined  with  differences  in  economic 
status  to  produce  a  bitter  hostility.  Is  this  conflict  un- 
avoidable? and  if  it  is  not  avoidable  what  is  the  principle 
to  be  adopted? 

The  conflict  seems  to  me  unavoidable  and  results  from 
the  too  sudden  contact  of  societies  which  had  developed 
in  comparative  isolation.  Standards  and  values  are 
growths  which  have  a  social  objectivity  and  must  not  be 
lightly  disregarded.  Simply  to  ignore  them  and  to  appeal 
to  the  ideal  of  fraternity  and  a  common  humanity  is  no 
solution.  The  democrat  must  have  some  insight  into  the 
actual  character  of  social  psychology.  While  kindly  in 
his  attitude  toward  all  peoples,  he  must  look  at  life  as  it 


268  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

is.  Would  it  not  do  more  harm  than  good  to  break  down 
the  barriers  within  which  different  cultures  had  developed 
and  to  admit  all  those  who  knock  at  our  gates?  Would 
we  be  as  able  to  solve  our  own  problems  if  this  tidal  wave 
were  allowed?  My  own  feeling  is  that  there  are  condi- 
tions to  a  healthy  evolution  of  broad  social  purposes  and 
that  there  must  be  psychical  homogeneity  if  this  evolu- 
tion is  to  occur.  There  are  distractions  enough  in  all 
countries  to-day  without  admitting  new  ones.  Future 
internationalism  must  have  as  its  foundation  a  healthy 
nationalism.  Immigrants  who  escape  from  one  country 
to  another  do  not  help  to  solve  the  problems  of  their  na- 
tive land. 

There  are  some  countries  in  which  the  population  is 
pressing  on  the  means  of  subsistence.  Until  there  is  some- 
thing of  the  nature  of  birth-control,  I  do  not  see  that  the 
mass  of  the  people  in  such  territories  have  any  chance 
for  that  self-development  which  is  a  condition  of  the 
higher  levels  of  democracy.  Nature  will  always  deal 
harshly  with  over-population  as  it  has  in  the  past.  Simply 
to  spread  the  surplus  over  the  world  would  not  solve  the 
problem,  any  more  than  to  divide  property  among  all  in 
equal  proportions  would  solve  the  problem  of  poverty. 
Socialism  cannot  change  certain  laws  of  nature  but  can 
only  teach  man  to  accommodate  himself  to  them.  Yet 
democratic  countries  have  always  been  very  willing  to 
assist  their  less  fortunate  neighbors  in  ways  that  do  not 
undermine  their  own  integrity.  And  the  best  way  to  do 
this  is  to  educate  leaders  among  these  people  who,  with 
a  better  understanding  of  the  actual  situation  than  a 
foreigner  could  ever  possess,  will  work  for  social  better- 
ment in  their  own  land.  Let  democracies  send  forth 
missionaries  of  culture  as  well  as  missionaries  of  creeds. 


CAN  WE  UNIVERSALIZE  DEMOCRACY?       269 

To  the  more  sentimental  socialist  this  counsel  may  seem 
lukewarm  but  it  is  the  only  one  which  my  judgment  per- 
mits me  to  give.  Let  us  try  to  be  intelligently  helpful  to 
those  who  live  in  the  same  world  as  we  do,  both  because 
it  will  pay  us  in  numberless  ways  and  because  we  are  large 
enough  morally  to  rejoice  in  the  advancement  of  others 
and  to  sorrow  at  their  pain.  Their  progress  is  literally 
our  progress  and  our  progress  their  progress,  so  intimately 
is  the  world  being  made  one. 

But  when  different  races  at  different  levels  of  attain- 
ment live  together  in  one  country,  the  problem  assumes 
a  tenser  form.  As  Bryce  points  out,  antagonism  between 
such  races  where  the  one  is  stronger  and  superior  in 
attainment  is  sure  to  arise.  "It  arises  from  inequality, 
because  as  one  of  the  races  is  stronger  in  intelligence  and 
will,  its  average  members  treat  members  of  the  weaker 
race  scornfully  or  roughly,  when  they  can  do  so  with 
impunity.  It  arises  from  dissimilarity  of  character,  be- 
cause neither  race  understands  the  other's  way  of  thinking 
and  feeling,  so  that  each  gives  offence  even  without  mean- 
ing it.  It  arises  from  distrust,  because  the  sense  of  not 
comprehending  one  another  makes  each  suspect  the  other 
of  faithlessness  or  guile." 1  On  the  economic  side  also  there 
are  causes  of  embittering  friction.  Whites  frequently  re- 
fuse to  work  side  by  side  with  negroes.  They  desire,  more- 
over, to  keep  the  skilled  trades  to  themselves  and  are 
especially  incensed  when  the  negro  appears  as  a  strike- 
breaker or  as  one  who  underbids.  Thus  economic  conflicts 
add  themselves  to  psychological  misunderstandings.  It 
cannot  be  denied  that  many  difficulties,  social,  political  and 
economic,  face  American  democracy  in  connection  with 

1  Bryce,  "The  Relations  of  the  Advanced  and  the  Backward  Races  of 
Mankind,"  pp.  29-30. 


270  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

the  relations  between  whites  and  blacks.     What  is  the 
wisest  attitude  to  take? 

It  would  require  a  book  in  itself  to  deal  in  any  way 
adequately  with  this  question.  All  that  I  can  offer,  there- 
fore, is  a  suggestion  of  the  drift  of  my  own  thoughts  re- 
garding the  matter.  The  more  I  read  and  think  about 
this  problem  the  more  convinced  am  I  that  it  is  wrong  to 
carry  race  distinctions  into  constitutional  and  political 
affairs.  Where  law  is  there  should  be  equality.  Else 
there  will  be  a  rankling  sense  of  injustice.  Yet  so  long  as 
one  race  is  backward,  it  should  not  be  allowed  to  secure 
control  if  it  uses  this  control  in  a  race  way.  But  there  are 
no  States  in  which  this  possibility  cannot  be  obviated  by 
compromises  which  are  inoffensive  to  the  majority  of  both 
races.  Let  there  be  a  literacy  test  of  a  fair  sort  if  such 
a  compromise  be  necessary  and  let  there  be  an  extension 
of  civil  service  as  against  the  long  ballot.  Such  political 
reforms  as  are  now  in  the  air  which  are  planned  to  make 
government  more  efficient  may  easily  be  so  applied  as 
to  circumvent  those  dangers  which  the  Southern  States 
have  had  reason  to  fear.  The  only  hope  is  the  applica- 
tion of  reason  in  place  of  the  blind  panic  of  fear  and  prej- 
udice. On  the  spiritual  side,  there  is  needed  a  growth  of 
sympathy  and  tact  and  a  conscious  realization  that  the 
two  races  must  live  together  in  the  future  and  should 
therefore  make  the  best  of  the  situation.  Above  all,  the 
dominant  race  should  be  fair  in  its  treatment  of  the  other 
race  and  do  all  in  its  power  to  help  the  more  handicapped 
portion  of  the  population  to  secure  self-respect.  This 
can  be  done  indirectly  through  education  and  increase 
of  industrial  efficiency.  Such  an  attitude  will  enable  the 
leaders  which  the  negroes  are  already  producing  to  set 
before  them  ideals  of  self-control  and  self-respect.  Since 


CAN  WE  UNIVERSALIZE  DEMOCRACY?       271 

the  two  races  do  not  blend  to  any  appreciable  degree, 
there  will  be  in  the  United  States  two  racial  groups,  yet  it  is 
not  impossible  that  they  will  gradually  work  out  a  way 
of  living  together  in  which  the  friction  will  be  minimal. 
Time  is  a  great  establisher  of  customs.  But  the  white 
race  must  realize  that  black  folk  have  souls  and  the 
leaders  of  both  races  must  stress  justice  and  the  need  of 
patience  and  kindliness. 

We  asked  ourselves  one  of  those  inclusive  questions 
which  can  be  answered  only  by  the  unfolding  of  a  stand- 
point. We  can  universalize  democracy  if  we  mean  by 
this  claim  the  belief  that  events  favorable  to  the  growth 
of  democracy  are  shaping  themselves  the  world  over. 
The  world  is  being  brought  together  in  a  physical  and  a 
social  way  and  convection  currents  are  carrying  ideas 
and  values  back  and  forth.  The  old  isolation  which  made 
possible  the  coexistence  of  all  sorts  of  governments  and 
customs  is  becoming  a  thing  of  the  past;  in  its  place  we 
are  seeing  develop  the  beginnings,  at  least,  of  that  organic 
coalescence  of  the  nations  which  will  make  impossible 
too  great  divergence.  The  biologist  informs  us  that  many 
species  are  able  to  survive  only  because  they  are  pro- 
tected by  natural  barriers  from  attack.  This  is  also  the 
case  with  institutions.  New  influences  will  act  as  dis- 
solvents of  old  forms  and  ideals.  But  while  we  believe 
that  man  is  potentially  democratic,  he  is  not  actually  so 
until  he  has  reached  a  certain  level  of  development.  And 
conditions  are  not  equally  favorable  to  the  attainment 
of  this  level  hi  all  places.  Time  must  therefore  intervene 
and  it  is  the  part  of  naivite,  or  of  the  doctrinaire,  hastily 
to  universalize  any  particular  political  system.  When 
looked  at  in  this  way,  it  becomes  clear  that  the  role  of 
American  democracy  is  twofold.  History  and  circum- 


272  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  DEMOCRACY 

stances  have  favored  no  other  nation  as  they  have  favored 
ours.  It  should  be  our  pride,  therefore,  as  well  as  our 
duty  to  point  the  way  to  that  healthy,  creative  and  happy 
society  which  is  within  our  reach  if  we  but  exalt  ourselves 
by  means  of  a  purpose.  Let  justice  and  education  be 
increased  and  all  things  else  will  be  added.  Our  success 
in  the  path  which  our  fathers  set  us  has  become  an  ethical 
duty  to  fall  short  of  which  would  be  apostasy.  And  noth- 
ing should  be  more  damnable  in  our  eyes  than  the  suave 
whisper  of  satisfaction.  We  need  lean  prophets  to  whip 
us  onward  with  their  scorn,  not  fat  apostles  of  content- 
ment with  things  as  they  are.  And,  in  the  second  place, 
we  must  feel  it  our  duty  to  reach  out  helping  hands  to 
those  who  are  struggling  upward  so  wearily  and  against 
such  odds.  This  we  should  do  inconspicuously  and  in- 
directly and  not  with  too  great  advertisement  of  the  fact. 
In  this  way  we  can  make  the  none  too  easy  path  of  de- 
mocracy in  the  world  less  stony  and  its  various  levels  less 
inaccessible. 


INDEX 


Adams,  Brooks,  16,  202 

Addams,  Jane,  153-4,  185 

Administrative  nihilism,  87 

Anarchism,  75-80 

Aristocracy,  105-111;  and  art,  107 

Aristotle,  135 

Art  and  socialism,  112 

Artistic  work,  149-150 

Balzac,  151 
Bentham,  Jeremy,  74 
Bryce,  James,  253,  269 
Bureaucracy,  86-90 

Cabet,  33 

Carlyle,  203-4 

Chamberlain,  Joseph,  234 

Chapman,  25,  103,  181 

Civil  service,  219-20 

Cobden,  239 

Commune,  30 

Communism,  90-2 

Communist  Manifesto,  27 

Competition  and  socialism,  57-8 

Conservatism,  causes  of,  208;  mo- 
tives for,  3 

Conversion,  need  of,  11 

Cooley,  53 

Cooperation  and  competition,  15, 
127-130 

Cooperative  movement,  128-130 

Co-partnership,  130-3 

Darwin,  24 


Darwinism,  255 

Davenport,  17,  25-6,  182,  187 

Dealey,  223 

Democracy,  39-40;    meaning    of, 

88;  conditions  of,  248 
Democracy  and  the  war,  241 
Dewey,  186 
Dickinson,  12,  185 
Diplomacy,  226-8 
Doctrines,  temporary  character  of, 

22-3 
Donisthorpe,  Wordsworth,  212-3 

Ely,  78 

Engels,  27,  40 

Ethical  materialism,  108-9 

Feudal  Aristocracy,  35 
Feuerbach,  41 
Fourier,  28,  30 
France,  Anatole,  166 
Freedom  and  justice,  214 
French  Revolution,  29 

German  Idealism,  41 
Giddings,  Franklin,  250-1 
Gide,  Charles,  129 
Goodnow,  258 
Government  ownership,  117-120 

Hadley,  58,  202 
Hegel,  40 
Hobhouse,  61,  173 
Hobson,  26,  147-8,  181,  184 
273 


274 


INDEX 


Hollander.  59 
Hunter,  59 
Huxley,  87 

Ideo-motor  theory,  46 
Individualism,  kinds  of,  18-9 
Inertia,  social,  nature  of,  16 
Institutions,  criticism  of,  49;  trust 
in,  206 

Jaures,  36 

Justice,  character  of,  158;  growth 

of,  170;  kinds  of,  164;  meanings 

of,  160 

Kelley,  Edmond,  55 
Key,  Ellen,  156,  238 

Labor,  human  costs  of,  147-9 
Labor  movements,  81-3 
Laissez  faire,  87,  211,  216 
Lansbury,  George,  235-6 
Leisure,  right  use  of,  135,  155-6 
Liberty,  limits  of,  212-3 
Liebknecht,  35 
Locke,  32,  100 
Lowell,  80,  90 

Machinery,  influence  of,  263 

Maine,  Sir  Henry,  216 

Mai-distribution,  16-7,  186-7 

Marx,  24,  28,  33,  49;  his  eco- 
nomics, 37;  his  philosophy  of 
history,  35-7;  and  the  prole- 
tariat, 38 

Marxianism,  its  contribution,  42 

Marxists,  49 

Mill,  John,  188 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  27 

Morel,  E.  D.,  236 


Morris,  13 

Municipal  socialism,  120-2 

New  Freedom,  17 

Oligarchies,  9 
Opportunism,  44 
Orthodoxy,  dangers  of,  4,  23-4 
Owen,  33 

Pacifism,  237-8 

Political  economy,  abstractness  of, 
27;  field  of,  137;  and  socialism, 
24-5 

Politics  and  ritualism,  216 

Poverty,  amount  of,  59;  and  so- 
cialism, 58-62 

Preparedness,  232,  242-5 

Proletariat,  38 

Profit-sharing,  130-3 

Race,  appeal  to,  261;  and  prog- 
ress, 266 

Radical  scholarship,  45 
Reward,  principles  of,  188-194 
Rochdale  Experiment,  52,  127-8 
Rodin,  154 
Rose,  J.  Holland,  234 
Rousseau,  31 
Rousseauism,  32 
Ruskin,  13 

Saint  Simon,  28 

Shaw,  G.  B.,  53 

Simkhovitch,  34 

Skelton,  125 

Slavery,  140 

Social  control,  20 

Social  freedom,  conditions  of,  207f . 

Socialist  propaganda,  39 


INDEX 


275 


Socialistic,  meaning  of,  5 

Socialism,  a  movement,  1;  Amer- 
ican attitude  toward,  21;  diffi- 
culty of  defining,  3-4;  defini- 
tions of,  6-8;  location  of,  10; 
misconceptions  of,  72f.;  need 
of  historical  approach  to,  22;  not 
bureaucratic,  86;  objections  to, 
96f.;  political,  44;  three  stages 
of,  27;  two  aspects  of,  24;  and 
the  social  sciences,  45;  and  the 
war,  239-41;  and  values,  104f. 

Sombart,  31,  136 

Spencer,  87,  130 

State,  nature  of,  228-230 


State  socialism,  88-9 
Strikes,  cost  of,  52-3 
Syndicalism,  80-6 

Tarbell,  Miss  I.,  172 
Tufts,  186,  225 

Unemployment,  60-1 
Utopian  socialism,  28,  48-9 
Utopians,  30 

War,  causes  of,  222-230 
Webb,  Mrs.  Sidney,  128 
Williams,  128,  131 
Work,  attitude  toward,  155 


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commonwealth,"  but  sticks  to  the  practical  activities  of 
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